Twilight Moments
by LJ Summers
Summary: Dribbles and drabbles of oddments that I won't be making into stories. Do not expect plot - they're just moments.  I might take requests. Currently rated T because that's how I usually roll. But hey, I'm flexible.
1. Emmett  What the Squirrel Saw

A/N: Originally done for 30 Days of Emmett. Thanks, hmonster4. :)

He knelt, eyes burning, over the weathered stone. "I heard about what happened," he whispered. "I never meant for it to be that way."

Wind skirled around his feet, kicking up leaves and a small twig that tapped his businessman's loafer. "Yeah, I know," he said with half a laugh. "You'd want more style, babe, but this is what I got." He sighed and it sounded as if the wind sighed in echo. "Today, this is it," he told the wind and the stone, the stone with the familiar shape in its usual place. "But at least my pleats are pressed."

A squirrel chittered at him and he chuckled. "No, I'm not insane, little one. Just lonely."

The small creature flared its tail as if in warning before dashing away to a low-branched pine. Emmett knelt in the dirt and caressed the rectangular piece of granite with its worn carvings. "Rosalie McCarty, Beloved of My Soul." He couldn't cry, but he wanted to – more than he wanted to follow her. "I'm still here. It's been a hundred years, and I'm still here."

The wind grew stronger and, though he was made of something like granite himself, he responded by moving away from the gravestone. "I know. I've got things to do. And you're happy, now. That's all that keeps me going. But I'll never stop loving you and I'll find you. Someday."

He withdrew a chrome-treated socket wrench from the latest BMW series and left it as a token. Because it would last longer than a rose. Longer than his Rose.

Only the squirrel saw him kiss the granite memorial, choke on a sob, and walk away.


	2. Alice's Birthday

**A/N: This drabble is based upon a real life happenstance. No, it wasn't my adventure. Alas!**

**With thanks to D.S. who would die of embarrassment if they knew I remembered this…**

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Alice rolled over, her eyes closed with her silent laughter as she kicked her feet on the mattress. Edward fought his own grin and shook his head at her. He made the decision to tell her, "Yes, all right, so it was more fun than I've had in a while. I grant you."

She, seeing his decision though he never even opened his mouth, launched herself to his lap, laughing in the bare range of audibility. _ I told you_, she thought clearly at him. _Next time, maybe you'll listen to me._

The year was 1986 and he and his sister were celebrating her birthday. Her husband wasn't all that keen on surrounding himself with "a bajillion bodies and their flighty emotions" and Emmett and Rosalie were off on another honeymoon – Rio de Janeiro. "Besides, it ain't really her birthday," he groused, unhappy that she would be out of his reach for an extended period of time in such a public place. "And ain't you a bit too old for Disneyland, Miss Mary Alice?"

"Oh, pooh," she had retorted, smacking him lightly on the arm. "I'm just as young as I feel."

"Twelve!" Esme did have a sense of humor.

So here they were, eavesdropping on the family just below who had had their Polaroid camera with them at the amusement park. Alice rolled off Edward's lap and lay on her stomach, ankles raised and crossed as if she were on the original _Mickey Mouse Club_.

"Wait, here they are again," the woman below said, her tone confused. In his head, Edward could see what she was studying: A Polaroid photograph of her children standing in front of Cinderella's Castle. With a pale couple some distance behind them, pointing at a map. "Were they on the Monorail, too, Mike?"

"I don't remember. But look, here're the kids at Space Mountain. Now that's nice." Then, "What the hell? That other couple is here, too. Pointing at something in the sky. Was there a blimp or something?"

"No..." the woman said.

Edward watched through their eyes and Alice through her extra sight as the couple continued in puzzled irritation. Photo after photo had this strange, pale couple. The young man in it was at least six feet tall and the young woman a lot shorter. They were never looking at the camera, but always at something else.

"Well, we're heading to Knott's Berry Farm tomorrow," the man in the floor below said consolingly to his wife.

She sighed and then chuckled. "Surely they won't be there."

Alice met Edward's eyes and bounced on the mattress once more. "Please?" she whispered.

He stood up. "No. Absolutely not."

"Party pooper."


	3. Edward's Letter

**A/N: I don't know where this stuff comes from.**

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"Edward? You've got a letter from the Blacks."

We were living in North Dakota, on a huge ranch where we raised cattle, of all things. I lived alone, in a bachelor's home. Carlisle and Esme were living in and renovating a small bunkhouse. Alice and Jazz had a cabin of their own, and Rosalie and Emmett shared the main building. I was working again on my music, deciding to include new instruments in my repertoire.

The call from Emmett at the main house had startled me. I had been living in quiet for days. "I'll be right there."

It was winter, so I had to run over the high snow. The sunlight sparkled on the white expanse and my exposed hands, but it was fleeting.

"Bella, huh?" Emmett asked. "Wonder if she ever got tired of her wolf-man?"

"Not Bella," I said shortly.

"Hey, sorry," he said, hands raised in apology. "Here."

I took the thick card and moved away, to sit near a window. Inhaling, I got no scent of Bella on the envelope. Perhaps it had been too long in transit, her particular aroma being diluted for me.

Opening it, I didn't know what to expect. The handwriting on the heavy cream-colored envelope wasn't Bella's and my hands trembled.

The heavy paper shook as I read.

**Edward,**

**Bella was killed yesterday. Victoria did it.**

**Let me get this out while my mind is numb. Victoria came back. We thought she was gone, remember. She wasn't. She came back. It's been fifteen years, but she came back.**

**We got her, my brothers and me. We did. It's what we do, remember. Before we killed her, I asked her why. I phased human and asked her why. Bella's my wife. Not your mate.**

**Because I know it will destroy Edward, she told me.**

**I phased back. Took her head off. We ripped her apart. Burned the pieces.**

**Stay away from me for a while, Edward. I'll be in touch. When I don't want to kill you anymore. I'll be in touch. There's probably stuff we need to say to each other, but not now. The kids need me. I gotta go.**

**Jacob Black**

**P.S. She never forgot you.**

I inhaled and smelled salt. Envy ripped through me. I wanted tears. To weep. Wail. Scream.

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I want to cry for my Bella. I can't even get _revenge_. All I can do is find some way to join her. Somehow.

I am ice. I am solid ice. Suicidal vampires are not common, I know, but I am one. Unlike any others, I know exactly how to get myself killed.

**_My dear family – I'm off to the Quileute Reservation. I love you. - Edward_**

I'll leave my note and Jacob's letter on my piano. They will understand and, hopefully, not try to stop me.

**_Bella... _**

**_I am coming._**


	4. Jasper's Last One

**A/N:** I promised **Bells. Just Bells**. a light, fluffy Jasper Christmas drabble and I WiLL DELIVER. **This is not that story.** This was written for A Different Forest's Canon Christmas contest. I didn't win, but I did have a lot of fun seeing what our fertile imaginations could create in less than twenty-four hours!

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**The Last One**

_What the hell was that? _

"_Who_ the hell was that would be more appropriate," Edward retorted disparagingly, leaping from the top of the farmhouse to the frosted earth upon which Jasper had crumpled. "She saw you," he continued, hunkering down beside his newest brother. Not so much a brother as a husband to the woman Edward considered his sister-of-kind. "You terrified her."

The blond vampire closed his newly-crimsoned eyes and leaned his head back against the wooden clapboard wall of the house. "I know," he rasped. "Did you think I couldn't feel them, Edward?" He levered one eye resentfully open. "I've _always_ felt them." He sensed the body cooling and resisted the urge to throw it from him; he would have to dispose of it. Of her._ Yes, her. _ "I've tried…so hard. And I was out huntin'."

"Obviously," Edward spat.

"Not for her! I was following a herd of deer. I even chased them from the farm and I was thinking that'd be nice, you know, because the family had some berries and popcorn decorating their porch and the deer were going for it. I thought –" he broke off, remembering before continuing with a broken voice – "I thought I'd be given' 'em a present, Edward."

The mindreader, surprisingly, emanated a feeling of understanding. Sympathy. "I know."

The scene replayed itself for the two of them as the light from half a moon and a sky full of winter stars twinkled off the thin crust of snow. Jasper had seen the deer and scented the latent fragrance of popped corn. With a grin that Edward felt in Jasper's muscle-memory, the warrior leapt a rough-hewn fence and sent the deer off running. "Gotcha!" Jasper said.

The thin screen door of the house had clattered. "Shoo! Go on!"

It wasn't the _appearance_ of the woman that had brought Jasper up to a sudden halt, it was her _scent_. Such a fragrance!

"Hey! Y'all lost? Come on in, it's cold out there, Stranger," the female said, her voice sounding like home to the hunter. Alice's face flashed in front of him. He paused and the lady's heart thumped hard. "You okay? Hungry? No one should be out hungry on Christmas Eve. Come on in. We've got some cider still warm on the stove."

"It's all right ma'am," he said, resolving to run far away. It wasn't a sexual thing, the bloodlust. It was just the draw – the powerful, magnetic pull of her life's blood. Venom filled his mouth. He swallowed it back and stammered, "I – I've gotta go. Just chasin' the deer off your yard."

She smiled and wrapped her patched robe more tightly about herself. Welcome and gratitude wafted from her as tangibly as her blood-scent. A maturity, too; a feeling that she was a maternal caregiver reached him. She stepped off the porch and slipped on the ice in her thin slippers.

"Whoops!" she called, laughing as she caught herself on the weathered rail. And _that's_ what caught _him_. The slice on her palm released her amazing, appetizing smell into the chilled air.

It was too much to resist any longer. His inner predator emerged and he flashed across the frozen ground to her, watching with regret as her greeting faded to a grimace and then an open mouth preparing to scream. Gratitude gave way to terror and her heart pumped more of that decadent blood from her hand –

"Enough," Edward ground out as Jasper's memory recalled – in equal parts personal horror, self-derision and relief that he had once again tasted human blood – the moment he grabbed her to himself, broke her spine and tore into her flesh. "We need to get her out of here."

"Mama? Merry Christmas, Mama! Did Santa come?"

Three small voices etched the air above the vampires' heads. Jasper was nigh on overwhelmed by their excitement, joy and expectation.

"Edward..."

"Come on, Jasper. Let's get her and go home."

"Alice...she'll be so disappointed."

Edward nodded as he helped his brother to his feet. "She'll forgive you."

"Mama? Where are you, Mama?"

"Come on, I see the light in the kitchen." Small feet pounded down a set of stairs.

"Now, Jasper!" Edward hissed as the taller man seemed frozen, the corpse of his meal draped carefully across his arms. "They'll come outside soon enough."

Flooded with remorse, his body aching from it, Jasper took off as swiftly as he knew how over the open land, heading for some kind of shelter where he could bury this woman.

As they ran, they heard, "Mama?"

Jasper swore to himself he'd never kill another human. She would be his last one.

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**Look for the light and fluffy story no later than Wednesday! :) ~ LJ**


	5. Christmas at Disneyland

**A/N: For Bells. Just Bells. As promised!**

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Pushing through the turnstile was not Jasper Whitlock Hale Cullen's first idea of a good time. Still, he submitted to the indignity and wondered privately if he should have sided with Carlisle on this one and encouraged the family to go on a cruise to South America this winter instead.

Then, he was through and slipped his camera from his backpack. A Nikon. He'd always liked that song by Simon and Garfunkel. "Maybelline," he murmured now. "Why can't you be true? Oh, Maybelline…"

"So? What do you think?"

He studied his mate, the love of his existence, through the camera lens. "I think you're beautiful," he told her, a soft layer of happiness settling over him.

She grinned and flipped her head to do a little Modified Meg Ryan from_ Top Gun_. "Hey Jazz, ya big stud. Take me to Disneyland and lose me forever!"

He laughed, picked her up in one arm while his camera was gripped firmly in his other hand, and turned her around to plant her directly in front of the floral Mickey Mouse which was located directly behind the turnstiles. "All right, smile for camera, hon."

She did and he grinned again.

All that overcast day he enjoyed himself, never noticing his bloodlust as he was outside with his love and the rest of the family. They split up, joined together, walked and rode the rides… It was an amazing day, really.

As it was over, and they left the park to go to their cars, which were in the Pinocchio section, he held Alice's hand and took deep breaths of the mellow December air in Southern California.

Carlisle, his arm around Esme, leaned back against the gleaming black Mercedes. "How'd you like your Christmas present, Jasper?"

He lifted his camera. "This? Last year's gift? Hey, I've really … What?" He felt the amusement and heartfelt satisfaction rolling out from everyone. "What?" he asked again.

"Your gift," Alice said. Leaping up and into his arms, she grinned impudently. "See? You've been so happy all day, you completely forgot to think about it."

"Well, yeah…but… _Oh_." Dumbfounded, he caught the golden-eyed smiles of each member of his family. Even Edward, who rarely cracked a smile lately, was grinning at him. "I've been happy. All day," he repeated, filled with a soft wonder.

"Yep. Merry Christmas from the Happiest Place on Earth, Jasper." Emmett chortled, wrapping Rosalie up against himself.

Laughing, Jasper shook his head. "Y'all are real good. I _will_ remember."

With a kiss, Alice whispered, "See that you do."


	6. Edward in Maine

**A/N: Stray story scene found in a file.**

**Background: Edward and Carlisle "let the change happen" in the ballet studio after James bites Bella. They take her to a spot near Sedona to complete her change. Upon awakening, Bella freaks out and runs off – faster than any of the Cullens – her newborn strength giving her speed that was unheard of. **

**They lost her thanks to a more comprehensive shield than she has in canon. **

**This is seven years later.**

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"Thank you so much," the woman said. "You have a good day."

I was at the L.L. Bean store – an institution in this part of the country. Time once again for our family to indulge in patronizing the local retail establishments to build up our cover. When I heard the saleswoman's voice though, I froze in the act of dropping dried minestrone soup into my shopping basket. If I had had a heart, it would have been pounding.

But I had been disappointed so many times over the years. I didn't drop everything to rush to the source of that voice. I couldn't. I had felt foolish far too many times. Thinking it was her voice, I would dash to the woman who had spoken and call Bella's name...

Stupid of me, as Rose pointed out, once. Her voice would be different, now, anyway. And I hadn't stopped to find her fragrance, either.

Not to mention that Alice had never seen her. Not once.

"Maybe she didn't make it," my sister had whispered once to me in the middle of a snowbank in Alaska. It was our private terror. That we had failed to protect her again, even when we made her immortal.

"When you saw her," I had rasped the last time Alice and I had dared open our wounds to discuss Bella, "what was she wearing, when she was one of us?"

"The dress I bought for her in Sedona. The pretty white cotton eyelet with cap sleeves..." Alice's voice broke and we choked on our sobs together.

This time, I refused to let hope build within me. I continued to fill the basket, but I inhaled deeply. It was a huge store, but I had heard the voice, so I should be able to smell...

And then, I dropped the basket.

Freesia. Predominantly freesia. No strawberries, but that had been a chemical additive from her favorite shampoo.

My breath came fast – an involuntary reaction – as I knelt to pick up the basket and turned in a fluid motion to follow my nose.

"Did you find everything you needed today? Good! And you're on our mailing list? Excellent."

Not the voice I remembered in my head, no. It was a feminine tenor bell, really. Beautiful. I was gasping by this time. Tasting the fragrance on my tongue. There was no bloodlust associated with this taste-aroma now, for the scent was not tainted by the tang of blood.

Forgetting the rest of what I had been supposed to be buying, I slid the dried foods on the conveyor belt and watched the woman at the register.

Her name stuttered on my tongue as I reached her. The name on her shirt said _Marie_. Her middle name. "Good afternoon," she said automatically, turning to me with a small smile.

I waited for the recognition to hit her. Waited for her to whisper my name. Waited for some kind of response but there was –

Nothing.

Devastated, I could only barely manage to ask, "Bella? It is you, isn't it?"

Her eyes widened in shock, and I only then noticed their color. A strange shade of green.

Green?

Oh, I could see the edges of a contact lens. Yes... Disguises. We all used them at some point. But why disguise her eyes? Golden eyes were not inhuman. Not dangerous.

Unless her eyes were not golden, but burgundy. She had not been taught! What could I expect?

Without looking at my purchases, she whispered at vampire-speed. "I don't use that name here. I left it behind. Who sent you? Who are you?" Then, with a perfect façade, she asked, "Anything else for you today, sir? Are you on our mailing list?"

In the undertone meant for her ears only, I snapped, "No one sent me. I'm Edward Cullen. I used to be," I began before drawing in a psychologically-necessary breath, "used to be your _mate_."


	7. Levi's Death of an Imprint

**A/N: For Val. Because she asked.**

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"Hemorrhaging? No!"

Levi's heart tried to jump right out of his chest. Holding his baby boy, he still leaned his whole body to his wife. His imprint. His reason for living.

He breathed because of her. His feet were on solid ground because of her. From the moment he had looked into her eyes years ago, he was hers entirely. It had been terrifying for him, but also the best and happiest time – being Linda's.

Heart pounding, he refused to let the doctor move him. "No! I have to be here with her. I have to be!"

"Levi..."

"No!"

It took Ephraim and Quil to slip Joshua from his arms and drag him bodily out of the delivery room so that the doctor could do his work. With every part of him, Levi listened to his imprint's heartbeat speed up and slow down. Her unconscious whines for the baby. For him. For the baby again.

He only noticed his own tears when they dripped on his forearms. "Linda, Linda, Linda," he chanted, as if her name alone could keep her breathing.

The doctor swore. Something clattered. More swearing and then a whispered, "Come on, Linda Uley. You've got to!"

The heartbeat stopped suddenly, like a runner tripping over a piece of driftwood and tumbling to the sand.

His muscles tensed, etched against the underside of his skin, clearly evident as he clenched his fists. Conversations scattered around him like pieces of a puzzle, unconnected, unimportant to him as his world ended.

"Quil!"

"Eph, stay here. You're chief. I got him."

"The baby!"

"Get him out of here."

"What's wrong?"

"Where's Mr. Uley?"

"Quil!"

"Yeah, I know!"

Tugging. Tugging. His body shook, muscles rippled, skin tingled, spine heated. Cold air, colder air. "Not here, buddy. Come on." Thick voice, deep. Sadness - the word rolled randomly through Levi's skull.

Baby. Linda. Love. Linda. Baby. Imprint. Linda.

Dead.

"Damn it!"

More words, but Levi didn't register them. He only felt the ripping of his body, the painful elongation of limbs and then –

The release of the howl. Grief. Unending sorrow. Running in circles, her face. HER FACE._ LindaLindaLindaLindaLinda! _

Nose to the ground. _ Imprint. Looking for my imprint. Linda!_

Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. Circles. Howling. Circles. Darkness. Light.

Other thoughts.

_Levi, man, come on. The baby. You've got a son, my friend. Come back to us. Come back to him. Please._

Images of an infant, wailing, arms flexing. More feelings of great sorrow, pervasive pain.

_She's gone, but he needs you. _

Baby. Son. Baby. Her baby. Their baby.

His mind soothed. Survival of the bloodline, another instinct, pressed in on his mind.

And then, a command that his mind registered and his body had to heed. **_Phase back, Levi Uley. Phase human. Now._**

Against his will, he obeyed, weeping instead of howling.

"Linda," he rasped.

"She's gone."

"Levi, you have to name your son."

Memories filled with joy sliced, then healed him. "Joshua. His name is Joshua."


	8. Talking About the New Kids

**Talk About the New Kids**

**A drabble for KristinHazzard**

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**Dateline: September 8, 2003**

**Forks High School Cafeteria**

**Lunch**

"I saw Dr. Cullen in the hospital when I had to get my appendix out."

"I saw Mrs. Cullen at the Thriftway. Have you seen her wedding ring? Oh. Em. Gee. It's a rock! Coulda put my eye out."

"The little one, the brunette? She's in my French class. She smiles too much. I bet she took French before."

"Where are they from?"

"Alaska! I heard… I heard they went to a special school. For really smart kids."

"Did they have identical skin grafts? Or maybe the school was underground?"

"Mike!"

"What? Alaska's different."

"Well, I think they're totally hot. That blonde? What's her name? Sophomore? She could totally do Playboy."

"Shut. Up."

"Seriously. They could be models. All of 'em. That big guy? Totally Abercombie material. The blond guy?"

"He looks like he's in pain."

"Runway model. They all look like that."

"What about the other one? The freshman? He's in my algebra class and looks totally…yummy."

"Did you hear him talk? He had to read part of _The Lottery_ like the rest of us –"

"Creepy story! Man, I'm gonna have nightmares!"

"Yeah. So. Anyway. His voice is like velvet. He could totally be a disc jockey."

"With that body?"

"Come on, Lauren. He's like a stick."

"I peeked at his schedule. I've got P.E. with him. We'll see if he's a stick or not."

"Stick or not, he's the most beautiful boy I've ever seen."

"Yeah, but can he shoot hoops?"

"Who cares? If he just stands there, it's enough."

"I heard they're all adopted."

"So? They're still hot. Especially that one. I heard the big guy call her Rosalie."

"She's totally standoffish. And look at them, they're not even talking to each other. Some family they are."

"Huh. Look at that."

"What?"

"They're all of a sudden eating and talking."

"Yeah, like weird."

"Weird."

"Hot, but weird."

"Yeah."


	9. Levi Meets Linda

**For SagaDevotee**

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**Levi: Meet Linda**

**[+] 1938 [+]**

"Hey, Eph! So, who's that? Didn't know we were making this a come one, come all bonfire."

"Her? A friend of Annie's from up north," Eph said with a shrug. "Annie needs some help, with the baby on the way, so she asked Linda to come on over."

"Huh. Nice of you," I remembered saying. I took a deep breath, to kind of get a feel for Linda. Being a wolf was a pain in my ass sometimes, but the heightened senses were great once I got used to using them.

Linda smelled like spring. Fresh and dewy with a hint of flowers. I smiled as Ephraim led me over to where she and Annie were, each with a metal coffee mug filled with fizzing soda pop. I was twenty-seven years old and hadn't been with a woman since I'd become a wolf. Who the hell had the time?

Annie had one hand on her rounded belly. "Hey, Eph! Levi Everything okay?"

I nodded. It always meant a little more when she or Theresa asked that question. "Yep."

"This is Linda Harp," Annie said, nudging her friend to get her attention from the bonfire.

Linda turned, her braided hair catching the warmth of the flames as she turned to me. She smiled, deep dimples appearing at the corners of her lips. I noticed those lips first because I felt a sudden, hot rush of desire for them.

And then, my gaze dragged upward and my world changed forever. My heart kind of exploded inside me, my mouth went dry and my body sort of jerked in her direction.

"This is Levi Uley," Ephraim said, with one bracing arm coming around me. "He might look like kind of a wet sock, but he's really a stand-up Joe."

I couldn't catch my breath. My chest felt like a fire had been lit inside of it. I just wanted to wrap myself around Linda Harp and breathe her in forever. "Hi."

Linda grinned, her heart jumping a little inside of her. I could hear it and my own heart went flying. "Hi. Want some soda pop?"

"Anything. Sure."

I followed her to the bucket with the melted ice and bottles of pop and I kept following her.

She was my imprint and I knew I'd be lucky to follow her all the days of my life.


	10. Rosalie's Silent Power

**Rosalie's Silent Power**

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Perfection.

The wedding...not quite what she'd anticipated, becoming one with him. Not quite, no. _She_ had expected to be the one crying, not him. Her beauty he had appreciated, she was quite sure. He had, in a desperate bid to gain her good opinion, stated that she looked incredible.

For a ghost.

Her slight spin in front of the mirror revealed a gash in the back of the gown. "Pity," she sighed before returning to review her appearance.

Not a hair out of place. It was like spun silk on her head and caught the candlelight with supernatural intensity. Skin? Alabaster. Features? Perfect and regular and exquisitely formed. Brows? Classically arched.

Eyes? "Black...so black," she whispered to the mirror. "Good."

It was her best proof. She had killed, but had not drunk from any of them.

Not one.

The door to her room slammed open and Edward was there. She showed him everything in her transparent thoughts, shoulders back and fiercely proud of proving her ability to – finally – avenge herself. With a quick inhalation, she braced inwardly for his scathing denouncement.

When his expression faltered, so did hers.

And when he flashed across the room to her to embrace her as a brother might his wounded sister, she let him.

They never spoke of it.

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**A/N: I am closing the Autism Awareness "What do you want to read?" poll on Monday, so please make your opinion known! I will be working on a one-shot for the fandom compilation to raise money for this cause and I'd love your input. More about the charity drive itself on Monday!**


	11. Esme's First Thoughts

**Esme's First Thoughts**

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Pregnant.

My son's wife is going to have a baby.

Well, he's not my son, as my dear little Michael was my son, but Edward _is_ my son in so many ways so I suppose I may be forgiven for calling him that. Carlisle, dearest of hearts, is just torn. That one of us could produce life is such a blessing! But also possibly a curse. A deadly curse.

Still..._a baby._

Edward and Bella. A baby.

If I felt I could dance up and down the stairs without attracting attention, I would. I'd start making baby clothes and singing and finding picture books and...

And dusting off dreams I had left behind forever.

Carlisle says Edward is bringing her home. Immediately. He's tense, so tense. After such a boundlessly joyful time, his eyes are dark. Black and fathomless pits of despair.

But I cannot feel that way. I can't. I can't look this miracle in the eye and hate it. I can't. I hope – I hope...

I hope my son and my new daughter, our Bella, will have a baby. And that even if there are problems, that we'll have a baby.

_A baby._

Is it wrong for me to hope for a girl?

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**A/N: I have a tie-breaker poll on my profile page over what topic I will be writing for the next FGB compilation, in support of AUTISM AWARENESS. Please check it out! Thank you. :-)**

**Thanks for reading!**


	12. Charlie and the Pregnancy Test

**Charlie and the Test Results**

**for SagaDevotee**

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She wagged the box in my face, but I couldn't seem to see it. Instead, all I saw were her eyes. Beautiful eyes. Dark and shining with energy. The eyes of a woman in love, the eyes of a woman with a happy secret.

I couldn't look away. Didn't want to, really. After the night she and I had just spent, out here in the middle of the Hoh, all I really wanted to do was roll her back over the sleeping bag and make love to her again.

Twice, maybe. She had that, er, _effect_ on me.

"Charlie," she whined, tapping me lightly on the nose with the skinny box. "I gotta go do this right away. First thing!"

"Do what?" I grumbled, knowing that the morning roll in the hay was officially not happening.

She smirked and handed the box to me. Then, she slipped out of the tent without so much as a kiss. Like I cared about morning breath. I watched the nylon tent flap fall down behind her naked ass and then looked at the box.

E.P.T.

"Leah!" I shouted, scrambling and slipping on nylon bags in my own bare feet. "Leah Clearwater! Get your gorgeous butt back here, woman!"

Her laughter came from behind a tree. She came out, her body glorious in the morning mists, holding a small white stick flat, parallel to the ground.

My mouth went dry and I could hardly move. "Leah?" I rasped. "What the hell?" My heart pounded and she was at my side in a breath. I clung to her, feeling dizzy.

"Just another minute or so, Charlie..." She pulled away to meet my gaze. "You okay?"

"I dunno."

She kissed me then, still holding that stick off to one side, and I felt a whole lot better. A whole _lot_ better, you know? And then, it was as if we both had an alarm go off in our heads and we looked at the white stick.

There was a little blue plus sign in the window.

I'd never seen her speechless before.


	13. Edward and the Sergeant

**You might actually see more of this…someday. :-)**

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**Edward and the Sergeant**

_Mom... Ali... James... Dad... Janie..._

Sergeant Whitlock was barely conscious as he mentally bid farewell to his loved ones.

The rumbling of a powerful engine was our cue to leave. Carlisle and I made ourselves scarce, staying nearby only long enough to ascertain that the American medics were able to handle the men we'd had to leave there on the street in a land far from home.

The faces in Sergeant Whitlock's mind would stay with me, as everything always did.

_Let's replenish our resources,_ Carlisle suggested. _The night's not over yet._

Returning to our temporary abode, we did so before heading out once more. I never expected to see any of these soldiers again.

_Mom... Ali... James... Dad... Janie..._

I had done my best to make sure that he could see them again. The irony of a _vampire_ preserving _human_ lives was never lost on me.

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**A/N: My story contribution to the Autism Awareness compilation will feature both Edward AND Jasper encountering an autistic human. Yep…the tie breaker…tied. Again. So I closed the poll! Please see my profile for the link to the FGB page regarding contributing to Autism Speaks. Thank you! ~ LJ**


	14. 21915

**21,915**

**A/N: In the worldview I have adopted for my vampires (see my story _Young Man's Fancy_ for a further explanation), the Singer is not a soul mate or anything like that. What purpose would that serve to have a vampire's heart and happiness dependent upon a human? For me, the Singer serves a different purpose. One of, dare I say it, biology.**

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For over a century, he had walked the world as one of the undead. The blood of humans had never passed his lips. Not that Aro hadn't tried...

It just didn't appeal. Until, one day, it did.

He had just been hunting and was only returning to the small residence in which he lived and plied his trade as a physician. He had a shingle over the door with C. Cullen burnt into a plant of oak, as well as a mortar and pestle outlined to indicate he was an apothecary. A healer. He paused to look up and down the street – a habit – before entering his saltbox home and office when a light spring wind spun with dancing feet over the road.

Carlisle Cullen's golden eyes blackened with a blood lust he only barely managed to control as tired young woman with round, drooping shoulders hummed softly on her way home after what had, undoubtedly, been a long day of hard labor.

The scent of her...! Vibrant and luxuriant, promising him entrance through the gates of Heaven as he laughed off Hell. Beckoning of sensuality, of pleasure, of satiation, of darkest lusts... All of them contained in the blood of the woman with the lank, exhausted curls under her mobcap.

The Singer..._His Singer..._

Marcus' distant expression as he told of the phenomenon: "And if he drinks of the blood of his Singer – the one whose blood truly reaches to the innermost predatious part of the vampire – the burn is vanquished. Quenched. We suffer with it no longer."

No more burning. No more burning. No more resisting. No more need, want, desire to drink, to kill...

He never had done so. He never would. Never.

In an instant, Carlisle made his choice. He swallowed against the fire, the inferno, the volcanic drive in his body. No one else being on the street, desperate to preserve the life of the Singer as well as his own self-concept, he dashed into his house, packed one bag – his physicians black leather case – and another handled leather bag he filled with a change of clothes and his recent set of papers.

And then Carlisle Cullen ran, fleet as the clouds high overhead. He ran to the west. He ran for three days and nights. It would be more than sixty years before he would consider turning to the east again.

Twenty-one thousand, nine hundred and fifteen days.


	15. The Emrys' Regret

**A****/****N****: ****Last ****year****, ****there ****was ****a ****Fandom ****Appreciation ****Day ****on**** 2/28. ****I ****don****'****t ****know ****if ****we****'****ve ****scheduled ****one ****for ****this ****year****, ****but ****I ****thought ****I****'****d ****post ****this ****today ****anyway****.**

**It is a missing moment from my story SHE WAS HIS FIRST, available here on FFn.**

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**The ****Emrys****' ****Regret**

**for****Katmom**

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"Edward!"

The flurry of preparation did not begin to lessen the Emrys' guilt. He had broken every promise made to her father, shattered even her trust in him, he was certain. She had never expressed a wish to be like him, not really.

He had twisted her innocent regret, borne in pain - but no terror, he remembered - and pretended to think she wanted to be an immortal blood drinker. He had changed her, forcing the poison of his venom into her body, forcing it to mingle with her blood.

"Edward!"

Her screams had, of course, gathered the rest to his dwelling. Erik, his first night with his new wife interrupted, had shoved past the onlookers into the room. Edward could see the scene through his eyes.

_Blood__. __Sex__. __Death__. __Blood__._

_Never __smelled __that __before__. __Legends__. __Maybe __true __but __he__'__s __never __done __this__. __What __happened__?_

Erik's position as his chief servant was well-deserved. He kept a cool head. "The Lord Emrys will need water. Lady Isa has had...an accident."

The Emrys couldn't speak as he held her, carefully lining up the shattered bones he had destroyed in the unacknowledged strength of his sexual peak. He took the wet cloth Erik offered, accepted Alis' hands in assistance to straighten out the trembling, stiff-limbed body of his beloved.

"Edward! Help me!"

Tears washed tracks from her eyes to the blood-spattered linen beneath her body. He knew the fire she was enduring, knew it with every breath.

"My Lord Emrys! What do we do now?"

He found his voice. "I must...take her away. Erik. This land is yours until my return."

"No, Lord Emrys, you'll –"

"No!" Edward shouted, his rage at himself making his voice a full-throated, bestial growl. "She'll kill you all as soon as this passes. Kill you, Alis, everyone, Erik. No. I will not let that happen. I'll take her far away until she is ready to live among you without pain." With bone-deep tenderness, he half-covered her with his bent body. "I will teach her to be like me. So that we will be together. And then we'll return to you, Erik."

The human man's thoughts raced in a flurry with preparations and honor and worry. But mostly, he felt a deep humility. "You honor me too highly, Lord Emrys."

"No, I don't. We'll return someday. Maybe you and Alis will have a child to show us by then."

"Surely not that long."

"At least."

"Edward!"

The fright and pain in her shriek tore at him like nothing had in his whole immortal existence. "I will keep you safe," Edward murmured.

He wasn't sure whether he was speaking to his servant or his wife.

Isa's eyes flew open, their deep brown blood-blasted now with the severity of the pain he had inflicted upon her._ I l__ove you!_ her thoughts said, a barely coherent communication.

Barely coherent, but still butterfly beautiful. Reassured, Edward gave orders.

They were gone before the sun rose.


	16. Jasper Listens

**A/N: Another from the _What If_ section of my fanficking folder. New Moon, slightly AU in that Jasper is worried about Bella and his brother having _The Talk_. Jasper goes to keep an eye on them.**

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**Jasper POV**

"Take a walk with me?" All right. That was Edward. I settled in to listen.

Bella's humanity hit me like a runaway mare. Her heart pounding with anxiety. Fear, worry, determination blowing off her in strong, jagged waves. Still, though, there was the love. Love not just for Edward but for all of us. I could sense all the shadings of it seeping from her, between the large, flat edges of her more predominant emotions.

Edward had her by the hand, and she willingly followed. His miasma of impending grief was deep. No, he hadn't sensed me here. I blocked my mind, though, just in case – not that he was expecting an audience and he couldn't read Bella's mind at all.

Lucky human. Lucky human with a thundering heartbeat and a scent that scorched my brother's heart.

They stopped twenty-two feet from the base of the tree in which I perched. Very close. I reminded myself to keep my thoughts blocked as much as I could, to keep myself absolutely still, and to contain all my emotions. I would probably be absorbing a lot, too, and they would have to be contained as well. Defenses shored up, I directed my attention to my adopted brother and the love of his life.

"Edward," Bella began, her voice quavering. "What is it?" She stood, feet spread apart as if prepared for a confrontation. I had to admire the girl. Even terrified of what she felt was happening – and she was – she was standing her ground.

Edward leaned against a tree, his face tortured. "Bella... I think, I think I need to leave."

The girl laced her fingers in front of herself and I could hear the sudden, furious racing of her heart from my branch. "You promised. You promised you'd stay with me."

"As long as it was what was best for you, yes," Edward acknowledged. I cringed. I knew where this was going. "But clearly, love, this is not what is best for you." He pointed to the arm that I knew was still bandaged from the fiasco of a birthday party.

"Edward! No! This was nothing. _Nothing_. It was an accident. You were just trying to protect me, I know that."

"Me? I meant my brother's...slip."

"Jasper? I forgave him already; you know that. _He_ didn't touch me. And you got me out of his way and I'm fine. I love you. That's the important thing. _Don't leave me_." I wanted to applaud, but of course I didn't. She stepped closer to him. I wasn't sure if this was a good tactic or not. On the one hand, he craved her blood and bringing it near would only solidify Edward's resolve. On the other, he yearned to protect her and shield her, as well as having a more basic yearning for her body. Lust poured between the two of them like a tangible substance when they were together. So her being close would be something he desired.

He stiffened. I heard him swallow. Imagined venom pooling in his mouth as he fought his thirst. Dammit. _Sorry, Bella. I guess that didn't work so well._


	17. Not Really Strangers

"...Two strangers with nothing left to say to each other." - Danny, _Carriers_

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He'd been phasing forever. Well, it felt that way. His imprint had died. So had hers. She bore it better, but both of them bore it in their fur.

They were on patrol when the bomb hit, obliterating the wind and water turbines, taking out the nearest shipyard and the Northwest Communication Hub. Having covered old wounds in half-healed hide, they ran together, because that was all they knew, anymore. The rest of the Pack were so young, so sadly unaware, so filled with the challenge and honor of their roles that they couldn't see how unnatural it all was.

But they two of them knew. And when the explosive was dropped, they saw it. No idiocy with nuclear waste or anything like that – someone had grown a brain in the last century – just a targeted explosive. Enough to wipe out the Rez and everyone else in a couple hundred miles.

They hid, the pair of them, for days in the outskirts of the forest. The Cold Ones stayed away from the fires, and the last Protectors grimly claimed their own humanity once again.

They still clung to that, years later.

"Leah," he whispered, pulling her near him on the porch of a house they had built together on the reshaped coastline.

"Yeah, Sam."

The building was complete, the neighbors were few – so many had left to go south, where it was warmer. Leah clutched Sam's hand, the two of them surveying the strip of beach between them and the Pacific.

He felt as if they were two strangers, with nothing left to say to one another. Still, they went inside and went to bed. Together.


	18. Bella's Lucky Lunch

**for SagaDevotee**

**Bella's Lucky Lunch**

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"Oh... Right there. Eh-Ehmmm-breeee...!"

I grinned, watching Bella move, hearing those sounds..._such sounds_... "Like that, huh?"

"Shut up," she panted, moving so that my hands slid, so that my fingers moved where she wanted them. _Needed_ them. I knew my imprint. Better than any man living.

Or, you know, not dead. Hadn't seen that damned bloodsucker in a couple of years, but sometimes... I smelled him.

Not that I was wanting to think about him. My girl needed me focused. "How about there?"

Her body stilled. She sighed. Moaned my name, her muscles tightening then going completely limp. "Oh, yeah."

"You know," I said as I stretched out beside her, still on the floor, "it's a real good thing I'd finished that carburetor."

Her smile was lazy, content. Like the pussycat that – yeah. Which gave me an idea.

I wiggled my eyebrows playfully at her. "So, how lucky do _I_ get?"

Like a cat, she stretched and almost purred before rolling up to peek on the bed. Hemi snorted in his sleep. Hennah mewed a little. "Oh, looks like you get lucky, too. After that incredible massage, it's the least I can do," she teased.

She grabbed the waist of my jeans and started unbuttoning. "Gee, Bella. Weird place for a massage..."

"Shhh...if they wake up, you don't get lucky."

I was absolutely silent. And it was an amazing...massage.

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**A/N: Reminder: April is Autism Awareness Month! You can now donate to Autism Speaks to get the FGB compilation of UNPOSTED, DONATED FICS! :) Please see my profile for details. Thank you!**


	19. Charlie and the Teddy Bear

**Charlie and the Teddy Bear**

_For Insane Grizzlies_

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The man sat, slumped, on the narrow staircase. His curly brown hair was plastered to his skull with the sweat of the distressed. Tears wet the mustache characteristic of his face. In one hand, he holds a rumpled blond teddy bear, its blue bow permanently stained by the saliva of a little girl. He props his head up in his other hand as he listens to the silence.

A devastating silence. Empty, yet filled with the death rattle of hopes, of dreams, of a life that has just walked out the door.

"I don't want to be trapped in this stupid, boring town! I hate it – I can't stay another minute!"*

Reneé's final words echoed in Charlie's ears. No words of "I love you, but." Nothing of their daughter or what was best for Baby Bells. Just the frustration of a young woman – little more than a girl – who wanted to escape.

And the cries of a toddler. "Daddy! Daddy!"

"Come on, sweetness. We're taking a little trip."

"Daddy!"

Charlie closed his eyes against the memories and felt his heart break all over again.

The teddy bear looked like it was crying, too.

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*Quoted from TWILIGHT, chapter 19


	20. Rosalie's Shock

**Rosalie's Shock**

**A _Breaking Dawn_ Missing Moment**

**for sahlamari**

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"Bella?"

"Rosalie? I need your help."

Taken aback at the whispered, frantic tone, Rose looked at her cell phone for a moment. "Look, did my brother hurt you? Do you need me to –"

"No," her new sister said with a rush of breath. "No, but – but something's happened and I – I need you to help me. You're the only one who can."

Astonished that Bella would turn to her – they had never been close, Rose nodded and looked around to make sure no one else was able to hear her. "Go ahead. What is it?" The need to protect what sounded like a terrified girl welled up in her breast. Had – had Edward asked too much of Bella? Had he made her –? No, Edward loved his human bride, but he was a vampire...

"We, I, we, um. Carlisle didn't think it could be, but he said we _are_ and –"

"For Heaven's sake, out with it!"

"I'm pregnant," Bella squeaked. Then, the sound of a deep, quiet sob came through the small speaker on the phone. "And I'm so scared. I think Edward and Carlisle think it's too dangerous. I think they want – they want to –"

In shock, Rosalie's mind raced at speeds only a vampire could comprehend. Bella had been a virgin. They knew this. But Edward was a vampire... Could he be an incubus? But what did it mean for him to have impregnated a human? How would that work? Bella was still –!

Oh. The implications chilled her. Carlisle would be curious, but he would first and foremost seek to preserve Bella's life and health and well-being. If the baby she carried - however improbably - threatened her...

He and Edward would seek to abort it. A baby. Perhaps the only baby that the Cullen family would ever have.

Her thoughts took only a human's heartbeat to follow to the only conclusion she could make. "I won't let them. Are you coming home?"

Another sobbing sound. "Edward's making travel arrangements right now."

"Bella." She waited until her sister quieted. "Bella, trust me. I want you to be able to have this baby. You were right to call me. I'll be at the airport when you get home. Emmett and I will make sure that no one hurts the baby."

"He's coming back. I've gotta go."

They disconnected. Rose stared at her phone, then at the empty living room. _A baby._

Yes, she would do anything to protect it. Anything.


	21. Quil and Claire and the Imprint

**"About that imprint..."**

**Quil and Claire**

**A/N: For Val's BIRTHDAY. Post BD canon... Not exactly what we discussed, my friend, but I started typing and this is what fell out of my head.**

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He told me about the werewolf legends as stories when I was little. He and I would play on the beach, and he was the best friend I had in the world. Even when I was a real brat, he'd smile that dimpled grin that I knew was mine. The only time he didn't go easy on me was when I was being stupid.

I went through a rebellious year or two, you know?

I was with Emily the day he told me about the imprint. He wanted to make sure I was with her, he said. "So you don't feel intimidated," was his reason. As if Quil Ateara would ever intimidate me! Yeah, I was fourteen. Thought I knew _everything_...I knew werewolves and vampires, but not _imprinting_!

We were sitting on a salt-crusty log on a windy spring afternoon. The three of us, Quil, Emily and I, watched the surf break on the wet, black rocks. I smelled the scents of the world, right next to the warm, earthy smell that meant Strength to me. It meant Quil; all my life, he had smelled spicy and warm and solid and strong. He didn't look at me, that day on the beach when he told me. He just laced his fingers together, dropped them between his knees and sort of hunkered over to talk to the sand.

"It means that you, we, I – I have to be near you. Now more than before," he confessed. "Because – because you're growing up."

"Like...biology, right? Like, hormones or whatever?" My face was on fire and I grabbed Emily's hand in one of mine. I was staring at the sand, too.

His body tightened and I could practically feel it. "Yeah. And it sucks, Claire, because I hate to feel like this all of a sudden but I can't really help it and –"

I lost my temper, then. Slapping him on the arm, I pushed up and away from _him_ and _Emily_ and my whole _life_. Tears burned and I kicked sand up at Quil's face. His wonderful, strong, sweet face.

"What the hell, Ateara? What do you mean you hate feeling like this? Is something the matter with me? Don't you think that –"

"Hey!" He ignored the sand and was on his feet in a minute, picking me up (he's really strong, have I mentioned that?) and holding me like he did when I was five. "Hey...sweetheart. Claire, honey, no. You're amazing. You are. I think you're the best in the world, really. I just – Hey!"

"Put me down!"

He did, and I frowned up into his face. "So you imprinted on me. So? It's cool. You're my best friend, Quil."

His expression changed subtly right then. And something in me...tingled. He didn't say a word. I didn't, either. I held my hand out to him. He took it.

_I'm only fourteen_, I told myself as wind stung my face and my hair got stuck between my lips.

Emily rose quietly and crunched over sand and broken sea shells to us. "Hey."

"Yeah?" Quil and I asked on the same breath, still staring into each other's eyes. It wasn't scary or intimidating at all.

"Um, I'm supposed to tell you something."

"What?" he and I said again. Then, all three of us laughed quietly and that seemed to break the hypno-stare Quil and I were sharing.

Emily plunged her hands hard into the pockets of her hoodie. "Sam said that Quil –"

"Yeah." Quil cocked his head at me. "Alpha order, Claire. I can't even ask you out until you're seventeen."

"Seventeen! That's years from now!"

* * *

I tried asking him out, over the years. Just a few months ago was the last time. There he was, bent over, working on an engine and...

My werewolf had a fine, fine ass. Just sayin'.

I asked him if he'd take me for a ride. Wolf-fashion.

Jacob, the jerk, was pounding out some dents in a beat-up Chevy and he howled like anything. "If you only knew, Claire!"

Even with greasy hands and sweat dripping off his forehead, Quil looked so manly and amazing. I could see his eyes light up as he eyed me up and down. His mouth opened, his throat worked...

And he couldn't even nod! Finally, he jerked his head no.

_Damn_.

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This morning, though...

I woke up to flowers in my bedroom. And pancakes in the kitchen. And a present in a long, skinny box with a too-big bow.

My heart was dancing, doing somersaults and even singing _opera_, I _swear_, as I forgot all about breakfast. My mouth went dry as I slid the bow off the box.

Inside, there was a gold chain. And a gold heart with a golden wolf-charm soldered inside of it.

My mom – Sam, Emily and Quil had talked to her and told her everything, years and years ago – smiled a little sadly at me. Oh, she was happy, she hugged me and congratulated me and then she sniffled a little.

"He's waiting on the porch, sweetie."

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And now, I'm wearing my birthday present and out on my first date. And it's not even eight in the morning.

"Someday, Quil," I tell him while he holds me in his arms and I wrap myself around him for balance, "Someday, I'll tell our kids about our first date."

He laughs, wonder and delight sparking in his deep brown eyes with just a hint of hazel to them. "Including the fuzzy slippers?"

I wiggle my feet, encased in the slippers Quil had bought me for Christmas. "Including the slippers."

"Good," he murmurs. And then, his expression goes solemn and serious. He leans toward me and I catch my breath and –

He's kissing me. Sweet and slow and warm and perfect. I sigh into the crook of his shoulder. "Fuzzy slippers and a kiss make the best birthday mornings."

"I'll remember," he tells me.

And he kisses me again.

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**E/N: Happy Mother's Day! I know it's a few days before Val's birthday, but it's gonna be a busy week in the Summers' household, so I wanted to make sure I posted this! :)**


	22. Hope in My Arms

**BD AU - Hope in My Arms**

**Rosalie POV**

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"You're sure?" Emmett asked me. He stood behind me, powerful and loving and entirely supportive. "You're sure she'll come?"

I nodded, my eyes on Edward's thatch of tousled hair, which had just become visible in the smattering of people making their way through the other side of the security check-point. The side where folks are landing, coming home.

Safe.

Safe except for the baby. My "brother" would kill it. I could see the determination in the hard set of his features.

"Bella, sweetheart," Esme began, her voice rich with hope. Foolish hope, really, but I loved her for having it.

Emmett sucked in a breath and moved a bit to one side as I called, "Bella!"

"Rose!"

If the matter hadn't been so serious, I would have laughed at the shocked looks on everyone's faces as my sister ran to _me_, ran into _my_ arms, trusting _me_. Me. _She trusted me._

"Don't worry, you're safe now," I whispered as I held her trembling body. Against my own womb, I could feel the thrumming of the tiny heart she bore in hers. Wonder washed over my granite skin and I met Edward's incredulous stare. "Safe," I said again.

"Rose?"

"Bella? Love? Sweetheart, what is it?"

"Take me home, Rose," Bella murmured.

For Edward, I replayed the phone conversation from when Bella had called me, begging for my help. My brother's eyes narrowed, as he saw my intention. "No," he hissed. "You can't. She'll die."

Bella didn't hear him. Emmett swung her up into his arms, meeting Edward's dark gaze with firm purpose. No one messes with my husband when he's protecting someone. Especially not his "Baby Bells."

"Rose?" Carlisle called as the rest of the family turned, already figuring out my plan. "We're doing this for the best."

"Whose best, Carlisle?"

Forced to move at a pace with the gloriously oblivious humans around us, we still maneuvered quickly – abandoning the checked luggage – to the parking structure and the cars.

"Bella!" Edward called again.

"I love you," she whispered over Emmett's shoulder, knowing her husband could hear her, "but I love my little nudger. I have to save him."

"Hurry, Em."

"On it, honey."

I could hear Edward's roar as we drove away.

* * *

Alice and Jasper came to Bella's funeral, but none of the rest of the family did. Jasper's melancholy draped over us like a rough, heavy blanket. Alice's sobs choked the air.

"Why, Rose?" she whispered as the closed casket – the baby, a girl, had ripped its way from Bella's wasted body – was lowered into the ground. Chief Swan and Bella's mom sat, their tears silently pouring from their eyes. Alice mourned for them, too. "Why didn't you let them save Bella?"

"She asked me to save the _baby_, Alice. I was doing what she wanted."

"She was my best friend. My sister."

"Mine too," Emmett reminded her, pulling Alice into a comforting hug. No one hugged like my Emmett. "I miss her. I miss them both," he admitted.

Edward had immolated himself upon news of the birth of his daughter and the death of his wife. It was terrible that he hadn't cared enough for the baby the two of them had made, but he was convinced I had saved a monster, "and let the angel die."

He never came to see his daughter. He didn't deserve her, anyway. I hope he and Bella are happy - wherever they are.

Jasper, curiosity piercing his melancholy, eyed the sturdy bundle in my arms. "She doesn't look like a baby."

I smiled and nuzzled the hot little head of the girl I carried. Her bronzed hair curled in the misty sunlight and she smiled at me, displaying a full set of baby teeth. "She looks about two years old, doesn't she? She's beautiful."

Jasper nodded. "Heartbeat."

"It's precious. Bella died to keep it beating."

Jasper met my eyes as I pressed my lips to the little girl's head again. "She doesn't smell human. It's kind of a relief."

"I know," I whispered.

"What's her name?"

"Hope. Hope Marie McCarty."

Surprise and happiness swirled suddenly around us as Emmett and Alice, her eyes wide and dry, rejoined us. "She's beautiful," Alice said on a sigh.

"She's my daughter. Of course she is."

The humans finished with their service and, as Chief Swan approached, I joined them in their mourning. Mourning but holding Hope in my arms.

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_**A/N:Yeah...it's been in my head in the midst of my world this week and I had to write it.**_

_**OH! If you haven't visited my profile, I want to thank you for your support in the Faithful Shipper Awards. WE KNOW YOU won for Best Wolf Pack! :) **_


	23. Bella's Baby Brother

**Bella's Baby Brother**

**a drabble from my Imprinting: The Mating Imperative AU**

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I'd never seen him look quite like that, before. I knew he was tired – Leah's labor had been almost twenty-four hours and boy, could my stepmother (is it wrong that I giggled whenever I thought of her that way?) swear – but still, life seemed to vibrate from him as he stood, half-bent over Leah, a curved finger caressing the baby's cheek.

I'd never seen him look quite like that, before. Younger, for sure, as he laughed at something Leah whispered to him. His eyes lit up and his smile deepened before he ducked his head and brushed a kiss over her forehead. The finger that had touched my baby brother was gripped in a tiny hand, now, and I knew just how that felt. I had three babies of my own and never failed to feel a little silly-sappy over how it felt when their newborn hands had gripped mine.

I'd never seen him look quite like that before. He turned toward me, joyous and abashed to have been caught going all ga-ga over his wife and son.

"Bells! Come here. Come meet your baby brother!"

Tentatively, checking visually with Leah, I approached. "I can't wait," I whispered, my smile wide. "You look great, Leah."

She grinned, proud and exhausted. "You did this three times! Bells, I've got tons more respect for you, chick!" She slid the baby into Charlie's arms.

He hefted the boy expertly, his arms molding to the infant body as he took the two steps necessary to reach my side. Then, he looked at me, square in the eye. "This is Jimmy, Bells. Named him after that great uncle of ours. You'll always be my firstborn, you know. He's not replacing you or anything."

I'd never seen him look quite like that before. That proud uncertainty in his eyes - so like my own - as they darted from Jimmy's face to mine. "I know, Dad. But he's your son."

His smile split his face. "My son. Yep."

My heart twisted a little bit in my chest. I'd never seen him look quite like that before.


	24. Double Murder

**A/N: Written for the latest TwiFicPics Weekly Challenge, wherein we were inspire to write by "crime scene" banners. The one I was inspired by is here: ht tp: / / twificpics. com/ ? p=8160**

**And here is the drabble I wrote. Thank you to vbfb1 for her great banner!**

* * *

The gun was still smoking. Smoke drifted from Tyler's mouth, too, his dark skin shiny around rolled-back eyes. I nudged him with my foot, tapping absently on the cigarette until its glowing tip died.

It was dead. Like Tyler. Like James. James held the smoking, nine millimeter Beretta. I had been staring at the business end of that piece for thirty endless seconds, waiting for something – anything – to change.

Then the door behind me slammed open and Tyler went down before he could toss his smokes. I didn't even look to see who it was – I just dove for Tyler's gun and shot James.

"If you pick one of these up, shoot it." My neighbor – a former airborne ranger and cop with a big city police department – had taught me how to shoot when I was still wearing braces. "And if you shoot, shoot to kill. Too much paperwork if you don't."

I had laughed at the time, but I'd practiced at the gun range. And met another cop and his kid. A girl named Isabella.

She pulsed out a breath now and whipped a wet cleansing cloth from her purse. "Come on. Two guns fired; someone'll call."

"I know," I whispered.

We wiped down every place we'd touched in the small kitchen with its faded cabinets. It was time to go.


	25. When Leah Imprinted

**When Leah Imprinted**

**A drabble in an entirely different AU - one of those things that popped into my brain. Yeah.**

* * *

When Sam phased, it knocked him out of orbit. Took him weeks to get back to being able to live as a human again, not a freaking _werewolf_. Fortunately, he had a _little help_. When he returned to live with his mom on the Rez, the first person who nailed his hide to the wall was Leah.

Finally, after begging the Council on his knees, he was allowed to tell her. Damn good thing, too. She accepted it – she loved him and he loved her – and they were together again. They'd fight, sure, but not any more than normal and both of them loved the fringe benefits that came with being a werewolf.

Her cousin Emily came to visit – a pretty girl, but no Leah Clearwater – and Sam thought it'd be the perfect time to ask Leah to marry him.

She said yes. Emily would be Leah's maid of honor and all of the world was going to be perfect. Sam really hoped and believed it.

And then, it happened. No one ever thought it would.

It was stupid, really. Damned stupid fight about something or other and Sam had to laugh because Leah fell over on to her own ass trying to scramble to her feet to yell some more at him. She shouted, "Stop it!" and then, she shrieked: "SAM!"

Her body was vibrating. He heard the abrupt change in her heartbeat and realized suddenly that she had been more his temperature than her own for weeks.

Of course, he picked her up and ran with her to the forest, to the cover of the trees, while she snarled and growled and kicked and scratched. Hot tears poured down his face. "Leah, oh no, not you, No, Leah..."

Her body seemed to explode and he phased instantly, his clothes flying like hers had, in fluttering strips of fabric.

_SamSamSamSam? _

_Leah, baby. I'm here. You know what you are. We've talked about it. Come on, Leah. Stay with me_.

Well, she did and he taught her and the rest of the Pack came out to support her. None of the sex snark entered into the equation yet...everyone was still stunned.

At first, the wedding went on as scheduled. Quil imprinted on Claire. Jared on Kim. Paul on Rachel. Sam never thought of imprinting – he was in love with Leah. Leah was in love with him.

Until the first time she saw Chief Swan.

She had run back to Sam, howling with everything she had. Recognizing her sound, Sam phased and the rest of the guys – knowing there was something dreadfully wrong – phased too.

Charlie Swan filled Leah's mind. They could all see it – all see the heat she felt for him, the sudden totality of devotion, the depth of her need for the older man.

Quil and Jared were immediately supportive, telling her she'd be all right and throwing advice at her right and left. Jake and Embry joked about her imprinting on a senior citizen.

"He's only forty-one!" she snarled immediately, defending the virility of her imprint.

Sam's thoughts were entirely overlooked as he settled, internally devastated, on his forepaws and watched the Pack interact, their every thought clear to him and each one so important to him. Each one. Leah more than the rest, perhaps, but she wasn't his now. Not anymore.

As if they caught his final thought, each member of the Pack turned to face him, ears bent back and fur bristling.

_Sam. Oh, Sam, I'm so sorry! - Leah_

_Oh, dude, this blows. Man, I'm so sorry. - Quil_

_Crap. Sam. I don't know what to say. - Jared_

_You're not gonna Alpha her, are you? - Embry_

Paul and Jake thought things that Sam knew he'd never be able to repeat anywhere.

In the end, there wasn't anything he could do. They called off the wedding.

Emily tried to comfort Sam, but it was futile. Entirely futile.

* * *

Every night, a wolf is silhouetted on the cliffs overlooking First Beach. He howls – his lupine voice sorrowful enough to bring tears to the eyes of anyone who hears him.

Leah doesn't phase anymore – she lives in Forks with Charlie. And she never goes to First Beach at night.


	26. Charlie's Happy

**Happy**

**Charlie & Leah drabble from the Imprinting AU**

**for**

**Diana_Wolfskill**

* * *

They held hands afterward – his cool, hard and firm; hers warm, relaxed and twitchy. He breathed her in, still not quite believing she was there. Oh, he believed in the imprint beyond a doubt; but that she was here...with him...and...

Keeping her fingers twined with his own, he half-rolled over to study her. A smile pulled at her perfectly formed lips. Bronzed skin shone in the light from the nightstand with a faint sheen of sweat. It was already drying. Her cheekbones were pronounced with half a smile, her eyes half-closed in contentment.

"What is it, Charlie?" Leah murmured, not opening her eyes, but rolling her head to watch him watching her. "See anything ya like?"

He chuckled, a bit embarrassed. "Oh, a couple of things," he admitted with a twitch of his lips.

She drew one hand up her body. "A couple?"

He swallowed. "Uh huh."

"Whenever you're ready, let me know," she offered, stretching languorously, temptingly before him.

With a sound that was half-laugh, half-groan, he pounced on her, pinning her wrists to the pillow. She let him; she was far stronger than he, but enjoyed pretending sometimes.

"You're sure about this?" he asked, studying her face and the strong, elegant features. "About wanting to try...?"

"To quit phasing? To have a baby? To be with you?"

"All of the above," he said quietly, rolling off her and propping himself on an elbow. "I want you to be happy too, you know."

"Oh, Charlie," she sighed, capturing him with one long, powerful leg, "I didn't even remember what being happy felt like until you. I am happy. I _will be_ happy. You make me so, so happy. So...full. I can't even tell you." Her smile was tear-rimmed, trembling.

He kissed it lightly. "All right, then." He caught her hand, content just to hold it as their lips reminded one another that yes, they were happy. So, so happy.


	27. The Birth of Little Faithful

**The Birth of Little Faithful**

**a birthday story for**

**SagaDevotee**

**from the Mating Imperative AU**

* * *

Her heart stopped, right in the middle.

I was right there, right in the room with her, holding her hand while she was pushing out our Hantaywee, our _Faithful_ daughter. Our baby.

With the twins, the labor had started early, but we had expected it and there was a plan. With this baby, only one, we just figured she would come when she came. She decided to come three weeks early.

And she decided to come at full speed.

Bella went into labor with her first contractions only a few minutes apart and we rushed her to the hospital. "Call Charlie," she ground out while she could speak. "Get the kids to Kim's."

"On it," I assured her, whipping my cell phone out and punching the proper numbers. When I'd done as she had said, I carried her to the car. I promised to stop phasing after the birth of this baby, but right now, I needed the strength my wolf-side gave to me. "C'mon, sweetheart. We got this."

"Yeah."

We had it until transition – that time of childbirth, the classes said, when the body goes from getting the way ready for the baby and getting the baby out. When that happened with H'antay, Bella's heart accelerated, her muscles cramped all over her body and –

– And with a surprised gasp, her lips turned blue and she fell back against the pillow on the hospital's delivery bed.

My brain started to spin almost immediately. Bella! Bella! Bella! Bella! If they'd had a monitor on my chest, they would have sworn I was having a heart attack.

As it was, the doc tried to push me out of the way, a crash cart blew through the doors and I was frozen – yeah, with my body temperature – willing Bella's heart to start again.

"Move!" the doctors – a few of them, now – insisted. I couldn't. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but stand there, stuck, thinking that my imprint's heart wasn't beating.

Terror clutched at me, mindless and strong. My skin prickled, itched, my scalp tingling and a familiar heat burned down my spine. I was going to phase. Go wolf. Right here in front of all these people.

I couldn't bring myself to care.

A shrill tone sounded, hurting my ears and then a thumping sound and then – just as I felt heat overwhelm me – her heart started.

She gasped. My name.

"Move!" I shouted to the doctors, pushing them out of my way as I got to my wife, my imprint, my love. "Bella. Isabella. Isabella..." I whispered as she turned sunken eyes my way. "Sweetheart, you're back." My voice cracked. I didn't care. Tears dripped on her hand. She didn't care, either.

Her smile touched me with a physical force. Tender and loving and full. "I'd never leave you. I love you."

A flurry of conferencing went on and it was decided to get my daughter out by c-section. It was messy, but I didn't leave. Couldn't leave. Not until little Hantaywee was in my arms and her mother's kiss lingered on my lips.


	28. Replace the Unwritten

Inspired by a banner (ht tp : / / twificpics. com/ ? p = 9120) by Frozen Soldier, who took 2nd Place in the Swing Life Away TwiFicPic challenge!

_**Replace the Unwritten**_

**A/N: The contest entry had to be 1000 words or less. This is the story I had **_**before**_** I had to cut it back to fit the requirements. ;-) And yes, I am still on hiatus. I was just...inspired. :)**

* * *

"Will you marry me?" I asked her, my heart beating hard in my chest as I waited for her to answer that so-important question on an August afternoon.

Her shy smile made me so happy. "Yeth," she whispered, pushing a lock of hair from her eye. Then, she blinked and grew very serious. "But we have to be grown-upth firtht."

She was missing a front tooth, just like I was; but at six years old, we didn't care. We were happy. I grinned at her. "Now I get to kiss you," I reminded her. "That's what they do when they say they're gonna get married."

Her cheeks got all rosy. "Oh! Okay." She leaned in to kiss me instead and our lips met in a sweet, gentle caress. That childlike innocence never left...not for years. The sunshine of that day seemed to fall generously into our lives, warming our hands as they held each other, heating the air between us as childhood slipped away.

**. . . **

I confess. I freaked out after we graduated. Seeing the wider world in front of our feet, hers and mine...we'd always traveled our path together. Everyone assumed we always would. I started to get a raw, edged irritation in my chest whenever someone would call us "Alsper." Alice and Jasper. Like Brad and Angelina, we were the couple that would be together always, everyone said.

And we weren't married, either. "I'm not adopting any kids," I joked with Alice one day as she was writing in her notebook – she had always been whimsical and was trying her hand at submitting a story to a magazine the summer after we graduated.

She blinked out of her fantasy world and smiled a little at me. "No one said we had to."

We. We. We were a "we" to her, too. Part of me felt supremely confident and happy knowing I was as much a part of her forever as she was of mine, but part of me wasn't.

That angrier, resentful Jasper took the stage at Open Mic Night at Emmett's. Alice was there, in the back of the bar that night. I knew she was.

"Something's off," she had murmured as she fingered through my hair before we went inside the darkly lit establishment. Emmett's Open Mic Night's were carded for the college crowd, but we – Alice and I – were legal and Emm knew we were coming. "I'll sit in the back, tonight. You'll – you'll do better, I think."

I shrugged, my mind on the set I was going to play. Rehearsing a bit of banter in my head, I didn't even see exactly when she left my side. My body started buzzing with nerves, giving me a peculiar high as the minutes ticked past and my turn at the mic approached.

Holding my guitar, I blinked into the lights that shone on center stage of the small bar. Emmett gave me a nod after a brief introduction. I was nervous and felt sweat run down my spine. But I was also exhilarated – this was my very first time performing in front of a live audience that wasn't entirely comprised of friends and family.

And there were girls in the front...women. Older women. College women, maybe, who were looking me up and down with admiration, anticipation...

Yeah, I got excited. I played for those girls in front of me, sang to them and flirted with my fingers on the neck of my guitar. I grinned and threw their sexual invitations right back at them, thrilling to the experience of knowing that I could do that, that I could affect them like that.

That I would be affected as well was inevitable. I never saw Alice leave that night.

_Alsper_ was, apparently, history.

**. . . **

She wrote a romance novel, Alice Swan did. She named the heroine "Bella," after her big sister, Isabella, who got engaged to my big brother, Edward, when they were in their mid-twenties. Alice had just finished college and I had finally got a band together and we were playing local gigs and opening for some bigger bands who had local engagements when Edward and I got together for our parents' anniversary in Forks, Washington.

"You oughta read it, it's good," Edward told me, tossing a paperback in my direction. He shrugged sheepishly. "Issa _made_ me read it," he admitted.

My heart thudded in my chest – not in a good way – as I tried to casually peruse the back cover notes. "Unwritten" by Alice Swan was a story about a woman who had had her heart broken by her childhood sweetheart. A handsome, lanky cowboy – were cowboys always lanky? – was fixing it right back up, though, and Bella was going to be just fine.

My mouth went dry and my throat worked and a huge, powerful ache just about doubled me over all at once. "Wow. A book," I managed to rasp.

"You all right, bro?"

I waved off his concern. "Yeah."

"Whatever happened to you two, anyway?"

I tried to put a mask over a shame that suddenly crashed over me. Tried to put the pieces of my face together into something that didn't expose my desperate emotional nakedness. "She couldn't handle the public stuff," I mumbled, keeping my eyes on the cover of her book. Sad eyes, a Stetson hat and a wedding ring featured on the cover of it. "And I couldn't handle her not handling it, I guess."

Edward was silent. Too silent. I felt another Big Brother Knows Best lecture coming on, so I puffed out a breath and turned away –

And there she was. Older, heart-breakingly beautiful, with large sad eyes and a winsome half-smile. "Hi, Jasper," she said, sounding just as she had years ago, when _Alsper_ was still a happening thing.

"Alice, hey." I scrambled, chest tight, to find something to say. I had to - to do something about that look on her face. The expression that said she knew way too much about me to trust me ever again. "Congratulations," I offered, holding the book up a little. "It's come highly recommended." I gestured to Edward, but he'd disappeared while I was getting a grip on myself, I guessed.

"Did you, did you read it yet?"

"Not yet – just got it."

She swallowed and I took a few steps toward her. She did the same as a summer breeze blew in through the screen on the front door. The light warm fragrance of innocence swept between us, as it had when we were kids.

Her mouth opened and shut. Mine did, too.

She might have been the published novelist, but my words were the first that came after. "I don't know what words you wrote, Alice," I whispered, not trusting my usual voice not to crack, "but – hell, I – I – can we unwrite them, maybe? Replace them?"

A slow light came to her eyes. With a tentative smile she reached up to brush my chin with the tips of her fingers. "Y- Yes."

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**


	29. Carlisle's Last Ditch Effort

**The Last Ditch Effort**

**New Moon canon, missing scene.**

**for The Edge Girls, who will know why and with thanks to u2shay for reading it :-)**

There was a phrase that grew into fashion during and after World War I. That was to have been the War to End All Wars...

Humans often said that with hope. We who are immortal know better.

The phrase was "the last ditch effort." When soldiers were on the battlefields, they dug trenches - ditches - if they were not planning on spending much time in them. They would use them to hide in for shelter and mount fresh attacks on the enemy from them. The last ditch effort was the one a commander decided would be made where there was nothing else that could be done. The platoon's time or space had run out and they had to give it everything they had in order to achieve victory.

For my family, we had arrived at such a time. In Ithaca, New York, I felt it behooved me as patriarch to launch my own last ditch effort as I tried to reclaim my family...what was left of my family. Edward, God give him peace, was chasing Victoria to do what he felt he could to protect Bella, though he had wrenched himself – and us – away from her.

Morose, the family waited for me to return from the hospital. I had done my best not to give it away even in my thoughts (old habits die hard, they say), but I knew that Alice would, if she had to, keep her visions to herself. She had merely, by prearrangement, called what remained of our family together that winter evening. I had ordered something to be delivered to the hospital and, it having arrived, I brought it to our house.

Not our "home," though. Not really. Since we had been...encouraged to leave Bella, nothing quite fit right for my family.

Still, I brought the last ditch effort back. The family, knowing something was up undoubtedly, was waiting for me. There was a miasma of depression over them so thick that I – who have no great gift as does Jasper – could feel it.

"Go to your rooms," I directed them, trying to smile. "I'll call you when it's ready."

That got half a smile from Rosalie, of all people. "Fine, _Dad_. C'mon, Emmett."

Alice winked at me and tugged a suddenly puzzled Jasper up to their room, while Esme remained with me. "Honey? What is it?" A smile danced at the corners of her lips for the first time since I don't know when. Even our lovemaking hadn't made her smile...she was appreciative, but her heart was broken and I knew it. Seeing her rejuvenated curiosity was worth every effort in mental gymnastics I had undertaken.

I unpacked the large delivery box – an intern had helped me angle it into the trunk of my Mercedes, but of course I brought it inside myself – and with all the haste I could muster, made the connections, unwrapped the plastic and adjusted the settings.

Esme clasped her hands together before throwing herself at me, eyes full to overflowing. "Oh, my love. I know it's silly, but I know why you did this and I – I am always, always surprised and amazed by you."

Well of course, I kissed her with good will for not a few moments until Jasper called out, "Enough already! What the hell do you have down there?"

Meeting Esme's eyes and sharing a grin with my mate, I turned and picked up a microphone and hit a power button.

The distinctive sounds of a strange, strange group called Right Said Fred began and my children – my family – all appeared on the stairs of our house, their expressions priceless. I began to sing and Esme, er, helped me out with the rather embarrassing prospect of being "too sexy for my shirt."

Laughing – actually laughing – the others surrounded me in an instant, looking over the programmed tracks for our first and only karaoke machine. By the time Alice was singing something about a _disco stick_ to Jasper, Esme and I were in our room, making up for emotions and intimacy we had been lacking, of late.

This did not bring our Edward back, but it did serve to help reunite the rest of my family. My last ditch effort – as foolish as it made me look – had worked.


	30. New Moon, Alt

_**How New Moon should have happened.**_

* * *

"Bella! Come on! How many times will you turn eighteen?" Alice pulled out the Big Golden Retriever eyes, expecting me to melt.

I grit my teeth against a groan. "No. _You_ come on, Alice! It's _my_ birthday. _ I'm_ the one who gets her wishes granted, right?"

"Of course," Edward inserted, draping his arm over her shoulder. "Let it go, Alice. Really, it's her decision."

I loved that he stood up for me. I loved Alice, really I did, but she did tend to be an undead force of nature. Snuggling against him, I watched the silent conversation the two had. She'd think at him, he'd hear her thoughts and decide to say something in return. She would see that decision and therein make it moot and they'd continue.

I was just happy I wouldn't have to go to a stupid party. Didn't they know that all of that just made me really uncomfortable?

So, for my "special day" Edward insisted on taking me out to dinner even though he didn't eat. Which was a perfectly acceptable birthday date and I enjoyed our time together very much. He brought presents from his family, which made me squirm a little, but what could I do?

"Alice put them in gift bags to make them easier to carry," Edward said with an awkward half-shrug.

"Tell her thank you," I said, doing my best to look pleased and not unhappy with all the gifts. "She'll have to tell me what she wants for her birthday."

"Bella –" Edward began.

"I've decided that October first is _her_ 'special day,' so I want to get her something." I could never give them what they gave one another, but I wanted to do _something_, damn it.

I opened my gifts in the Volvo, because I didn't want Charlie to feel bad if the Cullens had been...as extravagant as was their wont. The best gift of all was the CD of Edward's music...

My eyes welled with tears. "You made this for me?"

"I did," he said, his smile kicking up half his mouth. I wanted to lick it. "Only cost me two dollars." He looked so proud of himself. I chuckled and popped it immediately into his stereo.

His phone rang as we pulled up to Charlie's house. "It's for you," Edward informed me, handing the tiny cell phone over.

"Hello?"

"Bella?" Alice's voice came through with perfect clarity. "October first is perfect and thank you for reminding us that we have to let you have things your way too, sometimes. Now, be nice to my brother, okay?" She giggled.

So did I as I returned the phone to him. "She said to be nice to you..." I smiled as he helped me out of the car and leaned against it, a cloudy sort of moonlight overhead. "I can be nice."

Pulling me close, he nuzzled my hair. "I know. But before I tell you goodnight..."

I interrupted him, because it felt like he was pulling away from me and I couldn't stand it. Not yet, it was too early! "Please - can I ask for one more thing?"

"Anything," he murmured, his eyes burning with sincerity.

"Kiss me? Please?"

He grinned. "And here I thought you were going to beg me to change you again."

Could he really read my mind? "I know the answer to that one..." I murmured, pretending to pout. Lifting my lips to his, I wound my fingers slowly into his hair. He lowered his head to mine, his cool, smooth lips parting...

Taking advantage of his inability to hear my thoughts, I plunged my tongue through his lips into his open mouth, managing not to wince as I purposefully lacerated the delicate skin against his supernaturally deadly teeth...

"Bella! No!"

* * *

_**A/N: Okay, it would have been a really short book, but...**_


	31. Waking

_**Waking**_

_**Pre-Twilight canon**_

_**possible missing moment...**_

* * *

She knew she could read as soon as she opened her eyes. "I've been through Hell," she whispered, her breath feeling strange within her chest.

"Why strange?" she asked herself. "What – Hm."

She had been through Hell, yes, but flames were still setting her on fire. Her shriek was so sharp that the glass of the room shattered. She knew it was a room. She did. But that was all she knew.

That, and that she could read.

No words were before her though, so she fled. Fled the broken room and the pile of purple-smelling something on the floor. Death. It meant death.

So did the burning in her throat. _Quench it! I must – Ohhhh..._

She smelled something intoxicating – it would make her giddy to indulge, and she knew it and felt saliva – saliva? – burn in her mouth. Did saliva burn?

No matter, she followed her nose, giggling in anticipation, tracing the scent until she met its source...

"Who? What happened?"

She smiled and leapt and bit into it. It, it, it. Food... Yes, oh, the burning was gone. Blood. She had just drunk blood... And it was so good!

"More!"

She ran from the place with the shattered glass and purple-death. The world passed by in a blurry mist and she laughed. Fun! This was so fun!

Then, the world went black. She dropped to her knees, terrified as faces flashed before her. Faces. A man with bright hair. Like sunshine.

What was sunshine?

That bright. Her mind said so. Another with hair like burning leaves. Burning... Their eyes were shiny, like gold. What was gold?

"Oh, you're home!" the sunshine-man called, his voice beckoning.

"I am!" she heard a voice reply. Her _own_ voice.

"I am," she whispered as the hazy colors of reality returned to her. Looking down at her hands, she was reassured that she was in her right mind again. And she saw a piece of stuff flapping, attached to the short, tight dress she wore that was now spattered in that delicious blood...

It was paper and she wanted to see it.

"I can read," she reminded herself, though she didn't know what that meant, really.

Lifting the paper, she read the words upside down.

_**You are Mary Alice Brandon**_

_**and I love you.**_

_**~Dr. Christopher Lindgard**_


	32. Day Before  Carlisle

_A/N: It had been a while since I'd added to the Twilight Moments and thought this might be fun - imagining what happened in the Cullen house the day before Bella Swan came to Forks High._

_If you have any other ideas, Amazing Readers, for future drabbles, drop me a line!_

* * *

**The Day Before - Carlisle**

When Alice and Jasper came to us in 1950, I little realized what it would mean to have a seer in our family. I had changed Edward without expectation of anything extraordinary and was astonished to find he heard my thoughts. I confess to a slight (very slight) initial disappointment when I found that my dearest Esme was not similarly gifted.

Neither were Rosalie or Emmett, whom I also changed.

I laughed at myself at times, knowing Edward understood and forgave me my small vanity.

Today, though, my focus has been on Alice. She has been bouncing, giddy with anticipation, today more than any other day since I have known her. She and her mate, Jasper, brought two powerful gifts to my family and I have done my best to utilize them to our benefit while letting them be as "human" as they wished.

Alice loves trying to be human. I pity her, sometimes. I know her mate knows this, but we keep it as a secret between us.

"She's going to be my friend!" Alice reminded all of us as she checked everyone's clothes for tomorrow. "My first human in friend!" Her happiness was infectious, causing Jasper to almost reel in his gift.

"Is there anything I will need to know?" I wondered in my capacity as physician as well as the head of what is called The Olympic Coven in our world of vampires. "Anything I should be aware of, that you can see?"

Alice cocked her head at me, her golden eyes dazzling. "There are not a lot of decisions made yet that will put her in your path...but..." Calming down, her expression sobered. "Jasper did a background check on her. She and the ER staff in Phoenix are old friends."

I chuckled. "Let's hope she and I never have occasion to meet one another."

"Well you'll have to!" Alice insisted, twirling away and all but dancing up the stairs. "We're going to be best friends and I am determined to have a sleep-over!"

"With a human?" Rosalie protested from the living room sofa, where she was poring over _Car & Driver_ magazine. "In our home?"

"No, at hers!"

Edward poked his head out from my office and eyed me from the second floor. He smiled crookedly. "My sister needs to get out more."


	33. Day Before Jasper

A/N: In the continuing miniseries of The Day Before Bella Comes to FHS, here is Jasper.

* * *

**The Day Before - Jasper**

"We should hunt," Emmett said, rubbing his hands together. That he eyed me was annoying in the extreme. His _Especially you_ went unsaid, but I got the message anyway.

I was trying – still – to manage the temptation. I had been feeding from animals for over fifty years, but I had spent more decades than that _immersed_ in human blood. It was a struggle for me to resist but I would. I was stronger than my thirst. I had to be, to be the man I knew I could be.

"No, I'm fine," I said mildly, picking up the latest historical travesty to be issued by a university press on the War Between the States.

"You really should," Alice murmured. She was studying the marketing trends on my laptop for investment purposes.

"I am not going to bite your new best friend," I growled, irritated.

"No, you won't. This has nothing to do with her."

"I'm fine. I told you that."

Edward started playing, the music harsh and authoritative. I pushed out a breath and flashed up to my room. "I am fine," I repeated, over-enunciating each word. "I will _be_ fine tomorrow."

Disbelief hit me from several sources and I growled, deep in my chest. They didn't trust me. "I could just drop out and stay home..."

"No! You have to be there! You have to meet her. She's going to be –"

"Your first human friend!" we all chanted in chorus.

There was a moment of utter stillness, into which poured amusement and exasperation. "Well, she is!"

Edward changed his tune to a dirge. I didn't know if it meant he was bored or if he thought I was going to kill someone tomorrow.

My brother really needs to get out more.

* * *

_**End Note:**_ For those of you who are wondering,_** Lights Up**_ chapter three will be posting tomorrow.


	34. Day Before Edward

**A/N: The plan on these little drabbles is merely to present the Cullens in the order in which they were changed. So, here's Edward... **

* * *

**The Day Before - Edward**

The flashes from Alice's mind were – distracting. Bella Swan was utterly average, in appearance and in all of Alice's visions. Maybe that was the draw for Alice – the new girl's absolute normalcy.

I left the house to run. I had no intention of running anywhere near Chief Swan's house. That was all I needed, one more banal teenage mind to have to learn to listen to and ignore. The shadows of the forest were peaceful, no human thoughts and I eventually outran those of my family so that there was peace...

Quiet.

I craved quiet. Solitude of the mind. Sometimes, I wondered what it would be like, to be alone in my head. Like I was in the forest, yes, but for days at a time. Weeks. Years, even. Eternity was a long time to live alone as a vampire, but at least most of our kind had the privacy of their own minds in which to rest.

Tomorrow, we would be plowing once more into the cacophony of sound that was high school. If God had not abandoned me upon my change, I would beg for him to give me a rest from it. A rest from the constant mental pandemonium. The pettiness.

I loved my family and would not choose to be apart from them, but – the unending teenage life was both stifling and exhausting.

Alice's mental voice was very strong and it called me over the miles. _Edward! Don't you even think of running off to Alaska. Don't even think it! _

As if I would.

_Esme is worried you'll choose Tanya as your mate, you know,_ Alice teased as I neared the house.

"Oh, Esme," I muttered, too far for her to hear me. She hated that I was alone.

My mother needed to get out more.

* * *

_E/N: For those who think about such things, I am using as my primary source (ha!) the version of Midnight Sun that I read on SM's website. _


	35. Day Before Alice

**The Day Before - Alice**

I wasn't blind. I knew everyone was teasing me and laughing at me for being so excited about having a human friend. I think I might have caught a quick flash of pity in Carlisle's eyes.

That hurt. He didn't know. None of them did, really. They didn't know how it felt not to remember anything from before. Which sucked, and not in a good way, because I remembered way too much ever since.

When we first joined the Cullens, Jasper and I, I started off in high school. Jasper wasn't quite ready yet, so he played the role of Carlisle's cousin. I went to high school and in the year 1951, that was so much fun! Edward and I played like we were brother and sister and we went to the cafeteria together and he told me what everyone was thinking.

I wanted to make friends, though. I wanted to watch and study and enjoy the human girls all around us. To talk about boys and tell them about Jasper. But each girl I thought of approaching in the halls – Peggy or Linda or Carole or Nancy – left me with a vision of unease. None of them really wanted to talk to me, when I made the decision to talk to them. I saw their responses in their faces. In their posture. They were afraid of me. Even though I was small and looked helpless and tried to wear nice clothes...

They didn't want to be friends.

As the decades passed, I would try sometimes. I would decide to introduce myself to a girl in my classes. Sometimes, their initial response wasn't too negative and I'd angle for a double-date. But always, after I would decide, the visions would come.

Once, the decision that mattered was one not made until Jasper and I were out with the other couple. We had to make it look like a car fire and then we had to keep going to school, keep on with our pretenses...

After that, I felt too much for my poor Jasper to try to be friends with anyone again.

_Until_ the word spread that Charlie Swan's daughter would be coming to live with him. Jasper did a background check instead and found a picture for me. I decided to talk to her – because she looked approachable – and –

A flurry of hopeful images twirled in my mind. Bella Swan and I would have lunch together. She and I would have classes together and I saw her smile at me. We would go shopping and there was a dance in there somewhere. Kind of formal, so maybe a prom!

And no matter what I decided, these visions stayed fairly constant. If I had been human, I would have had goosebumps. Here, in the tiny town of Forks, there was going to be a girl who would not be afraid of me. She would be my friend.

My first and best human friend.

I was still humming about this as I looked up the stock reports on my laptop. Jasper was growling on the sofa, muttering about the Civil War.

My husband really needs to get out more.


	36. Day Before Esme

**The Day Before - Esme**

Sunday is not my normal marketing day, but I went to the Thriftway anyway. It was a sad little supermarket as such things go, but I so enjoyed the – the _atmosphere_ in this place. It wasn't the decoration – they could have benefited from a renovation – but the people. Forks was a small town and small town people talked. Hearing the local gossip made me feel more a part of things.

Then, too, as I told Carlisle, I could hear what people thought about the children.

But that day, I was actually not going for any noble purpose. I just wanted to be first to see the girl Alice was so excited about. I wanted to see Bella Swan. It was just a guess, but I knew that Charlie Swan was a bachelor and I imagined he would take his daughter to the market at the very least so that she could get a few things they might need for the house.

Or personal items. I knew for certain that the chief wouldn't have anything in his house a girl would need! How could he? Men were so unaware. Sometimes, even my wonderful mate lacked a certain insight.

So I went to the store, expecting to see Charlie and his daughter. I didn't know what she looked like, of course, so I was waiting to see him. I dawdled in the cereal aisle, waiting. Returned a bit later with a list of things I had pretended to forget. Still, no Charlie.

But then I saw a young lady with damp brown hair and large brown eyes who was so pale I almost thought she was one of us.

"Oh, there's Charlie's girl," one of the ladies in Canned Foods whispered.

"Really? Where?" another said, not whispering at all.

The curiosity was tangible even to me – and I have no gift like my son, Jasper.

I peeked down an aisle and saw the girl with the brown hair. She was being greeted by the cashier and I knew then for certain.

I returned home, hoping that everything would go as Alice saw it might, the next day. Bella Swan looked very unassuming, but she was doing the family marketing all alone, which meant she must be quite mature.

I hoped so.

Carlisle just laughed when I told him my story as he read the latest medical journal.

I sniffed. "Fine, you keep laughing."

He looked up at me, his eyes wise but cautious. "Esme, try not to be disappointed."

"You should have more faith, Carlisle. You really need to get out more."


	37. Day Before Rosalie

**The Day Before - Rosalie**

I loved Alice. Really. But her enthusiasms were exhausting. Wanting to bring a human girl into her life? That might mean into _our_ lives? A _human_?

She said there would be slumber parties. Hell. Like we need those. What did she think she needed that we, her family, couldn't give her? Mated to a kick-ass warrior – yes, he had caused us to move more than I liked, but he was _trying_ and I did appreciate that – able to see to our finances which we _all_ appreciated, and she had a family.

Didn't she know that was enough?

I was positive that Miss Isabella Swan would treat us just the way all the other brainless girls in that high school did. She would swoon over my brothers, or maybe me if she went that way, but once she tried talking to us, she would get all scared and think we were weird and then she would gossip about us like the rest.

The only problem with that scenario was that my sister would be disappointed.

At least we would all be here to support her. Because that was what families did.

"Where are you going, Esme?"

"The market, dear. I forgot something."

"We're vampires. What did you forget? Hairspray?" I smiled and tossed a length of my own hair over my shoulder.

"Oh, thank you, dear. I did forget that. I'll be back soon."

Esme really needs to get _out_ more.


	38. Day Before Emmett

**The Day Before - Emmett**

Hunting after dark was the best. I didn't range far, but I managed to find a good herd of deer. Not my favorite, but if I plan my trajectory just right, I can land on two at once, breaking their spines but allowing their hearts to keep beating.

On deer, that was safe. Not so safe for a bear.

Sated, I ran home. Alice was in our room, Rose's and mine, planning our wardrobe for the next day.

"Come on, Alice!" I protested, shaking my head at the white corded sweater. "I'm gonna look like an effin' corpse."

"No no no. She'll think you're huge, you know. And powerful. So go with it."

I bit back a smile when my wife stiffened. "She's going to be staring at my husband? What kind of a slut...?"

"Not like that!" Alice said, hands up like a peacemaker. "No. She doesn't know he's married, in my vision. She just thinks he's huge. You can see it on her face." So she thought I'd be _huge_? A few guys-only things to say came to mind, but only Edward heard them.

Rosalie tossed her head, exposing her long throat. Damn, she knew that got me every time. I rolled my shoulders and her eyelids drooped a little.

Alice cleared her throat. "Fine. I'm going."

She turned off the light as she left our room. It didn't matter. We spent the rest of the night in the dark, Rose and I, but that never made any difference. I loved being a vampire.

Not all of us did. I heard Edward's window open and close as he left. _Wish he had a mate of his own. Then he wouldn't have to go out so often._

* * *

**_End Note: Thanks so much for reading this miniseries! _**

**_More drabbles forthcoming...from wherever my imagination roams or where YOU give me suggestion! :) P.S. If you gave me a suggestion earlier this summer or before, please make it again. When the PM system changed...my brain melted! _****_~LJ_**


	39. Bella's Confession

**Bella's Confession**

**Post BD Canon**

**for**

**abbyweyr**

* * *

It was an academic discussion, when I came upon them. I didn't hear their thoughts and imagined – mischievously, I admit – that Bella was plotting something to surprise me. I considered turning away, but I couldn't. My thoughts twitched, my mind seeming to spasm with unease. I was accustomed to Bella's silences, but not hearing my _family_ was harder to manage.

So I listened with my ears.

"I don't think Maria would go for using any kind of pain relief," Jasper remarked. I heard him settle Alice on his lap, heard my sister's sigh as her husband continued. "It makes the blood taste strange, for one thing, and that would screw up her reward system."

"But it might come in handy for the Volturi," Carlisle inserted. I could imagine his expression, alight with ideas. "Aro is not entirely without mercy."

My wife had not said anything; the silence grew heavy. At last, Carlisle prompted, "Bella? What do you think?"

"You can't tell him," she whispered.

Alice gasped. "Oh no!"

"Damn it, Alice!" Bella snapped.

"I'm sorry. It shouldn't have been for years..."

I heard Carlisle make an impatient sound. "What?"

"It didn't work," Bella and Alice said simultaneously, voices of silver and gold in the evening by the river.

"But, we were sure..."

My chest felt as if it were splitting as Bella, with audible reluctance, confessed. "The morphine didn't stop the pain, Carlisle. Maria might actually like it," she added in an aside to my brother. "I was trapped with it. It prevented my movement. It was like being bound by titanium ropes and gagged into submission while I burned."

"Bella..." they all murmured, their voices infused with remorse.

It was nothing compared to how I felt. Forgetting that I was eavesdropping, I left my listening post and flashed to my wife's side. "Bella, love... You never said –"

Pain darkened her lovely topaz eyes. "I know. I did everything I could not to tell you, Edward."

"I never should have –"

"No!" she shouted, lunging at me as the others found reasons to leave the area. "No, this is the way it should be. You and I are going to be together _forever_, Edward." Her lips skimmed my jaw and I buried my nose in her hair, my mind replaying her astonishingly quiet change. "Don't you regret a thing, do you hear me?"

"But, Bella... I – I..." I couldn't say it.

She bracketed my face with her palms. "You loved me. You gave me a daughter. You made me like you. It's all I ever wanted. And then some."

Her mind opened to me, flooding my awareness with a hundred memories of bliss and I sighed, "I love you."

"It was all worth it."

I kissed her then, doing my utmost to communicate my love and appreciation for her. I hated having put her through that Hell, but I acknowledged it was the only road to our Heaven.

I never would deserve her.


	40. Edward Gets New Siblings Again

**Edward Gets New Siblings. Again.**

**for Bells. Just Bells.**

* * *

_Oh, there's that nice Cullen boy. Such a handsome boy. I wonder if he's taking anyone to Prom, yet? I could ask his mother. Mrs. Cullen might be willing to help._

_Damn it, where's the wrench?_

_Don't wanna do my stupid homework. Who needs Algebra? _

_And-a-one, and-a-two –_

The thoughts reached Edward mercilessly, from Mrs. Bowen and her wish to find a prom date for her bookish-but-beautiful daughter to Katharine and her mental counting to keep the beat as she studied her instrument.

_I have never seen the like. My whirlwind girl_. Images came to Edward's mind of a petite whirling dervish of a girl, inky hair over an enormous grin. The thoughts belonged to a besotted male. A male who was worried perhaps about moving in with his girl's family...

"Wait!" he blurted aloud without thought. His own voice made him pause before he started jogging to the last house on the street. The one at the edge of the woods in this small, new neighborhood at the north end of town.

_Oh, Edward is not going to appreciate this. _

Esme!

A torrent of words flew through Edward's head as he reached the house he and his makeshift family called home for the time being.

_Now, wait just a minute._ Rosalie's mind sought for him to take it slow. _They're animal drinkers. Look at their eyes. We told them about you. She already knew, though._ There was the image of the girl again. And of a tall blond man – in his room!

"What on earth?" Edward began, pushing past the flurry of excuses and explanations offered to him by his family. Up the flight of stairs to the end of the hall –

_Edward! Edward! Edward! I know you! We are going to be such close friends. You and Carlisle taught me –_

_Damn it all to hell. The mind-reader is here. Alice said it would be all right, but I feel waves of worry and fear and – oh, hell. _

The new pair of eyes blurred in Edward's sight, facing the inside of the bedroom door. Protective thoughts. Protection of his mate, his woman, who stood behind him, amusement and excitement rippling through her. Edward felt all of this through the new male.

He pushed the door open so hard that the knob carved a new hole in the wall. "Who are you?" he demanded, eschewing courtesy. "And what are you doing in my room?"

The male was taller even than Edward himself, his body powerful and his thoughts focused on protection and trepidation and flashes of heinous battles that happened in a dark and gory place.

Momentarily distracted, Edward stared at the male until the smaller female all but twirled into his view.

"Hello! I'm Alice and this is Jasper and we've been invited to stay."

Drawing in a breath, Edward narrowed his gaze at the pair of them. They were vampires and their eyes – were _golden_.


	41. Edward to Emrys

**Edward to Emrys**

**a drabble for u2shay**

**From the She Was His First AU, in which Edward is a blood-drinking immortal around 500 B.C. See the story on my profile page!**

* * *

**625 B.C., Northwestern**_**ish**_** Europe**

Early morning sunlight warmed Edward's skin as he lay prone on the bank of The River. It was the major life-bringer here for the people called the Belgae, and so was called _The_ River. Between his callused fingers, a slender branch was balanced, a woven length of fiber with a piece of raw meat knotted to its end to tempt the fish.

He was hungry; it had been a full day since he had been able to find food, here. Something had scared the wild creatures away. His stomach, pressed against the earth, rumbled with its emptiness. Edward grimaced and endeavored again to ignore it.

_Come on_, he thought. This shallow bumping-out of The River should prove good to fish in. He had done so before, seasons past. _Come on, fish._

_Tug! Tug, tug! _

"Hi-yee!" Edward gasped, moving in an awkward motion from his stomach to his knees, the fish flying backward so that it could not return with a leap to the water.

"Oh!"

The strange voice had Edward pulling his knife from the sheath he wore tied around his waist. In a smooth movement, he had turned and crouched, iron blade at the ready. In front of him, perhaps two body-lengths away, was a pair of short men. They might have come to Edward's shoulders, and they had wispy fair hair. But that was not what had Edward dropping to his knees in obeisance.

_They are gods!_ he thought, his heart pounding faster than any drum in his chest. _Look at how they shine!_

"Vladimir," one said, tossing the still-wriggling fish so that it landed in front of Edward's knees. "You were correct."

"Thank you, Stephan. So I win?"

"Yes, I suppose." Edward could not fully comprehend what they were saying, only that they did not sound threatening. But when one of them approached him and looked to be about to take his food from him, he lashed out with his knife.

The blade broke on the god's arm and Edward cried out in surprise and pain at the shock in his arm. "Don't kill me! I'm sorry, lord. I'm sorry! Tell me what I must do to appease you!" He bent to grovel, sure that his end was near.

The Romanian vampires smilingly shook their heads at the human with the autumn-hued hair. "Vladimir?"

"He smells delicious. Thank you." Kneeling in front of the man, Vladimir lifted him up so that they were able to look one another in the eye. "Human, what is your name?" he asked with a tap on the man's chest. "I'm Vladimir."

Quick to understand, Edward said his name.

"Would you like to live forever?"

Uncomprehending, Edward only responded to the kind, seemingly generous tone the god had used. He nodded.

Vladimir bit.

**" " "**

One hundred turnings of the seasons later, having run from the continual intrigues Vladimir and Stephan wished him to share in, Edward ran. He ran west until he found water and then he ran under it until he found land. At last, on an island of mists and rocks and small, dark men, he found an honest life.

The men of that land called him The Ever-living. The Emrys.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks, Shay, for making me dig out my ancient maps! lol**

**In other news:**

**I have a story in The Canon Tour, Pre-Twilight Round! **

**It's an anonymous contest, so I cannot tell you which entry is mine, **

**but I'd love for you to read them all and vote for your three favorites! **

**Information is on my profile page, if you're interested! Thank you! ~ LJ**


	42. Heartbreak

When **A Different Forest** has a quick-fic contest, we Rangers cannot enter. But that doesn't mean the plot bunnies don't come anyway!

For the Post-_Eclipse_, Decade-Later contest held over Labor Day Weekend, 2011, the challenge was to set the story ten years after the end of _Eclipse_, ignoring _Breaking Dawn_ and writing your own idea of how things were for Edward and Bella.

Most of the stories were angst! If you want to see the contest stories, they're here: ht tp: / / w w w. adifferentforest. com/ Campfires/ 13291 - Just take out the spaces!

This story, and the one that follows, CONVERSELY, are the ideas that leapt to my head.

Thanks for reading!

* * *

**Heartbreak**

He held his sister in his arms, the two of them being embraced by his mate and the rest of the family. Heartbreak cracked her shield, crashing over him like a wave of icy seawater.

"You knew," she accused him on a whisper that hurt him more than any release of ragged, coarse, hateful words could have done. "You knew."

"I'm so sorry."

Carlisle moved to kneel in front of her, his final daughter. "Sweetheart, it's not your fault."

At this, Bella had had _enough_. She exploded from them, her topaz eyes blazing as the others held only an empty space. "I'm still not good enough!"

Jasper doubled over in pain. Her pain and his own. "No, no, it's not like that," he rasped, wondering how a vampire could develop a hole in his chest. Alice crooned comfortingly to him, her fingers brushing his skin as he tried to find the strength to contain the ire and pain his sister threw at him. "You know it's not. You know what he said."

"He would always love me. _In a way_," she spat, her arms wrapping about her taut body, hair almost alive around her head and shoulders, vibrating with the suffering fury within her. "And that I would find _my_ true mate one day. He knew it."

Esme rushed to her, ignoring Bella's attempts to distance herself. "Sweetheart, he loved you."

There was nothing but the dry sobbing of a devastated immortal as the sun passed from the sky, leaving their Montana home in darkness.

Jasper didn't move, but sat with her on the floor. Alice collapsed at Bella's other side. He sent his mate little wafts of curiosity, wondering how long Bella would remain in this fetal ball on the carpet. Alice just frowned and shook her head.

Resolved to do something with the morning light, Jasper passed the evening quietly, reflecting on how they got here, how he might have managed his own knowledge more effectively.

Having convinced Bella to marry him after she graduated high school, Edward had, surprisingly, bent on the "no sex until marriage" rule he had held. Privately, Alice had told him, Jasper, that Edward had been prepared to make love to Bella on the day she accepted his ring, He had told her that she should be able to do as she wished. And she said, then, that his way was her way, too.

That changed a little bit when saying "goodbye" to her family was harder than she expected it to be. So, they remained engaged and went to college together, enjoying – Jasper knew all too well – a healthy, energetic sex life. Their love was deep and real, if not the vampire mate-bond that they were all sure would emerge when she was changed.

The big day came when she was twenty-one. She did look a _bit_ older than Edward at that point, but not enough to cause comment. To celebrate her birthday, it was reported that they went bar-hopping in a chauffeured vehicle which was hit by a drunk driver. Bella chose that, with Edward's reluctant consent.

His uncertainty had all kinds of layers to it that Jasper understood. Would she still love him when she was a vampire? Was her love for _him_ or for _what_ he _was_? What if she couldn't forgive him the pain he would cause her?

Never had he dreamed that her change would show that though they loved, they were not mates. Not the way vampires became mates, anyway.

But they loved, they wed, and they were happy. They had been happy until after she was finally able to graduate from college. On a celebratory tour of Europe, they had met a friend of Carlisle's: Alistair of York. The ancient hermit had recently changed someone himself; due to a quirk of modern illumination, he had only begun to feed when he was compelled to leave her. Alistair's _daughter_, Bronwyn, met Edward and changed his world forever.

He ran from her, taking Bella and fleeing to the States once more.

"Jazz?" The anxious tremor in Edward's voice had been audible over the phone.

"What?" Jasper asked, his body stiffening as if for battle. "What happened?"

The story poured out through the wonders of technology and Jasper remembered, there in the darkened Cullen living room, how his own trepidation had filled the house before he brought it back into himself.

Upon their return, Edward had tried, but his confusion, fear and longing for his true mate had been almost crippling.

Until today.

"Edward, tell me! How bad can it be?" Bella had asked in the privacy of their room. The family had gone to give them privacy, but Alice – Alice had seen it coming and insisted upon being close enough to keep someone from being hurt.

_Too late there, hon_. Jasper sighed to himself.

No violence had been committed. Just a "Go, then. Go to her." The words _annulment_ and _divorce_ were spoken. As had, "Let me take care of you," and then – nothing.

Just an eerie resolution from Bella's unshielded heart before she boarded it back up again.

Shortly before dawn, she whispered, "It's not right. He should be able to bring his mate back to his family. I'll go."

"No!" Alice insisted almost before Bella got the words from her mouth. "No, you won't. You'll stay. With us."

Desperate familial love throbbed between the two women and Bella embraced Alice with nearly bone-shattering strength. "I can't take you from the rest."

Alice shot him a glance along with another pulsation of feeling. _Please?_ the feeling communicated.

He nodded, unable to refuse her anything she wanted so much.

"It's time for us to live apart for a while, anyway," Alice began, before sharing a vision that must have only sprung to life in the past five minutes. Jasper shook his head, thinking that his minx of a wife was certainly a manager.

But she was, and he loved her for it.

At dawn, Bella agreed. The Whitlocks and Bella Brandon would begin anew.

* * *

**If you're reading this after 9/30/11, know that I've expanded this into a multi-chapter story: Open Up Next to You. It's different from pretty much anything I've written. And it's rated M for mature relationship issues... Just in case you wondered. :) ~LJ**


	43. Conversely

**Conversely**

**JPOV**

"Where are my socks?"

We all laughed lightly. Bella smirked as she poured pancake batter onto a skillet. "I told you I'd wash what was in the hamper. If a super-gifted vampire can't get his clothes all the way into the hamper, he can wash his own."

I relished the love and happiness such moments wrapped around the family. It took a human living among us to give us what we hadn't had, before. My own tolerance for her blood had increased exponentially since they were married almost ten years prior. On their wedding night, Edward had made love to Bella for the first time in the little cottage Esme had prepared for the two of them. We were nearby, just in case –

Which had turned out to be a good thing. After making love, Edward had _had_ to hunt and Bella went to make herself a sandwich.

"It was a spur of the moment decision!" Alice had proclaimed, panicking as she and I ran to the cottage. I broke through the damned window to get to my sister. Her scent, the blood, everything hit me in the face like a train.

"Jasper," Bella had gasped, sounding surprised. "Oh, my."

Alice cleaned up the blood that had been spilled and I – I kept Bella from spilling any more. I applied pressure until Carlisle arrived, all while my throat burned in agony.

Until it didn't. An odd circumstance that I wasn't going to question. Bella's blood, once so potent to me, was now as significant as air. That is to say, not at all.

Smelling the spilled blood of his singer on me as he returned from his hunt, Edward almost killed me. My arm was off my body and my head was about to follow when Esme and Alice both reached us and calmed him down.

I laughed about it, even then.

Edward ambled down the stairs, carrying a basket of laundry. We all chuckled, Rosalie most of all. Having a human sister has really softened Rose.

I didn't know what had made Bella change her mind about becoming a vampire. Ten years had changed her, though. She was lovely. A woman in her prime, her face was mature with wisdom and humor. She was learned. Though her mind did not function as a vampire's would, her determination was second to none and she had already acquired a doctorate. We would actually both be faculty at the University of Phoenix this year. Edward, not to be outdone, had managed to complete his clinicals and was working in the emergency room of a local hospital with Carlisle.

His happiness knew no bounds as Bella grew through her twenties. He nursed her through colds, made her feel good through bad bouts of PMS, and perfected the art of body massage to pamper her human musculature. And when she said to put his dirty clothes in the hamper, he did.

Or he did his own laundry. And enjoyed every moment of it.

"Oh Bella," Alice enthused, watching Bella pour syrup over a few nasty-smelling pancakes, "you almost make me wish I could enjoy those, too."

And there, in the everyday joy of a family time, I got the answer that had eluded me. Bella's soft brown eyes lit with delight as she playfully swiped at the rim of her plate with one finger before sucking the sweet stuff off, all while holding my Alice's eyes with her own.

"I bet you do," she said with a patent satisfaction fairly exploding from her.

_Edward, your wife is the most selfless creature I've ever encountered, _I told my brother silently.

Bella stayed human because _we_ _needed_ _her to_ – because she _loved_ us.

_Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for another_, Carlisle has quoted. There is no one who loves _more_ than Isabella Cullen.

* * *

**Yes, this was another Post-_Eclipse_, No-_Breaking Dawn_ drabble idea for the ADF Labor Day Weekend gig. Not allowed to enter; couldn't help but write anyway!**


	44. Emmett and the Angel

**Emmett and the Angel**

**A drabble for MegsD2**

* * *

Ma taught us about Heaven and Hell. In the mountains, there were few other certainties. Food could be found, but we had to hustle our hindparts to get it. Weather was up to the will of Almighty God. Death came at His will, too.

I just didn't expect to see evidence of Heaven when I had stepped through the Gates of Hell.

First, there was the hunt. That bear was a mean ol' cuss, and he tore me up good before my angel found me. I knew I was dead because a creature like her could not be living in the world I knew. Hair like wheat, eyes like night – angel eyes that saw all the pain of Man – and a voice that was like music.

And we flew, she and I. We flew through the world until she got me to God.

I was dying; thinking Carlisle was God was to be expected. I thought so even as he sent fire through my body. It was Divine Judgment for my sins: Be torn apart by a bear, see perfection in an angel, and then to be cast down to the fires of Hell.

While I burned, I repented. I heard voices. Musical and strange, they knew my name but I didn't remember telling them. I was in a place of Judgment and had to burn.

The pain gradually went away and I became aware that I was being held. I heard her voice and wanted to weep, sure that I'd passed through the fire and been granted absolution by virtue of the angel's wish.

"Angel," I finally managed to whisper.

"Open your eyes, Emmett McCarty."

I could feel power in my body. I felt my own strength. I wasn't on fire any more and I did more than just open my eyes. I laughed in relief, bounding up from where I had been burning to give thanks to my angel.

I moved so fast I knew I was in Heaven as I stood to see her. Beauty was too small a word and I tried, I tried so hard!, to find a word big enough, perfect enough, glorious enough to define her. "Angel..." I whispered again.

She smiled a little and the breath left my body. "I'm Rosalie."

I knew the others were close, but I only saw her. "Am I in Heaven, then?"

The angel's smile went away and my heart wanted to break for her. "No, but I hope you'll forgive me for keeping you here."

Still burning in my throat, I knew she spoke truth. It was in her beautiful eyes, in the sadness of her voice and the sighs that surrounded us. Still, there was one more truth she did not know. "Forgive you? _I love you_," I told her.

Hope lit her face again and I knew that, even with the Hellacious burning I still felt, a fire I was needing to quench, I was in Heaven. My angel made it so.


	45. Levi in the Cabin

**Levi in the Cabin**

**A Drabble for KristinHazzard**

* * *

**A missing moment from _We Know You_.**

**From Chapter Nine: Renewal**

_"So I guess what I want to know, Bella, is will you stay with me? I'd say marry me, but..."_

_Her breath came strangely fast at his unconventional proposal. "My kind don't generally marry, Levi. It's all right." She brushed her lips against his skin again, flicking the tip of her tongue to taste him in all his male anxiety. It was kind of sweet and so sincere and she wondered how long he had been planning this since they hadn't actually talked with one another for years. "You're really a wonderfully surprising man, Levi Uley."_

_"Uh, thanks. Is that a yes?" His eyes flashed with eager hope._

_She answered him with her mouth and hands until his breath was a groan and his heart tried to beat right out of his powerful chest. He took that as the affirmation it was and swept her literally into his arms to continue to their destination._

* * *

__

Craziest damned thing ever, but Levi could not have been happier. His heart beat for both of them, almost bursting from his chest with his joy.

Bella said _yes_. Her kind did not marry, she had said. Levi, though, distinctly remembered that the Cullens had been married. The doctor, the leader, had been married to the pretty lady who looked like a silent movie star. There had been two other males and a female. Were they not married? Was the leader of the coven a rarity? Perhaps. But they all had golden eyes...

Grinning down at her, he saw Bella's golden eyes tracing the lines of his face and he wanted to blush. She had seen so much, he knew, but she loved him. _Him_. He knew that, too.

At her cabin, he stopped and set her on her feet again. They both looked at the small structure, and he wondered what she was thinking. For himself, he was thinking that this would be his home. The place where he would live out his life, maybe.

How long might that last? Grinning, he pressed his lips to her hair and imagined it could be decades. Maybe centuries.

She turned in his arms and wrapped her own around him. "So, are you coming in?"

He breathed her in, ignoring the sharp, burnt scent and dwelling only on the floral notes as well as the delicate scent of her arousal. "How did I manage to stay away so long?"

"Same way I did," she reminded him, her expression solemnly loving. "By knowing you were doing the right thing." Before he could second-guess their current plans, though, she smiled teasingly up at him. "The right thing right now, Levi Uley, would be to walk me right up to and through that door."

Entering her cabin, she tugged him to the center of it. He held her again and looked around. "So, you're sure?"

"I am."

He nodded, pleasure suffusing his body so that he crushed her to himself, thankful that he could not hurt her. "Well, then we'll need to do some redecorating."

She laughed lightly and moved away a little from him, running one hand down his arm until their fingers entwined. "A bed. We need one."

"A stove, too."

Her eyes widened almost comically. "Food! Of course!" Her forehead crunched in dismay. "Levi, I –"

Shaking his head, he tugged her back to him. "Bella. Even though we both tried to stay apart, we're here, together. I know how it feels to be without you and I don't want that to happen again. We'll make it work. We can. We have time," he whispered intently, bending his head to brush her forehead with his own.

"We do," she affirmed, tucking her head under his chin. "Soon."

"Soon." She pressed herself against him and he responded powerfully, suddenly aware of all that being _together_ with her could entail. "Soon," he repeated.

Her cool lips warmed on his skin, both of them whispering "Soon" over and over into the chilly air of the cabin. Air that hummed almost visibly with possibilities.


	46. Edward and the Second Silence

**Edward and the Second Silence**

_From my Mating Imperative AU. [Embry Call imprinted on Bella. They marry and have three children: Hennah, Hemeh and H'antaywee. You can find this scene referenced in __Surprise M'Ending_, Chapter 10.]

* * *

The rightness of leaving Bella was confirmed in all its fullness on the day I saw her on Alice's webcam with her middle rounded out with twins. And though she complained about being on display like a beached whale, I could see the pride in her rich, brown eyes as she met mine via the digital connection.

I could never have brought that particular expectant fulfillment to her. If she had not been imprinted on by Embry Call, then she might have come with me. Her eyes would have been golden or she would have never had this specific joy only available to her as a human with a reproductively-capable male as her husband.

So I smiled with full sincerity at her that day online. "You look beautiful."

Her blush was vibrant. "Thank you."

When we received the invitation to Jacob Black's wedding to Cassandra Uley, I went out of a sense of duty, I confess. And because Alice badgered me to a remarkable degree. We arrived shortly after the humans had had a pre-wedding breakfast.

Bella, her youngest in her arms, greeted me with a warm smile. I saw the changes in her, minute and precious. "Edward. So glad you could come. Hennah and Hemeh are in the wedding, you know."

I smiled and took her offered hand with remembered delicacy. "I heard, yes."

She pointed out the twins: Hemeh was dressed in a suit with a boutonniere and his sister was wearing a light dress and clutching a basket in her tiny hands. Curious, I took a peek inside the boy's head.

_Don't drop the pillow. Count to ten. Don't drop the pillow. Walk with Hen. _ He repeated it as if it had been chanted to him. And I heard in his current thoughts the memory of his mother's voice doing just that. I was charmed and felt myself grinning broadly.

Bella was an amazing mother. I was so thankful she had chosen to remain human, with Embry.

Hennah's hair was braided in decorative patterns at her temples. Her dark eyes were wide and I wondered what was troubling her, so I tried to dip into her thoughts to find out.

And there was nothing.

I gasped, incredulous.

"Edward? What's wrong?" Bella lightly touched my arm, bringing me back to myself.

With disbelief in my voice, I smiled a little at her. "I can't hear her. Your daughter."

Bella glanced down at her armful of H'antaywee. "She's just a baby."

"No, your other daughter. Her mind is as silent to me as yours."

Annoyance flared in Bella's eyes at first and I realized that she would not appreciate my peeking in her children's thoughts. But then, she grinned and a defiant delight seemed to glow about her. "Good."

"Pictures! Come on!" Alice called. "Cassi? You're in the middle. Now, let's get you all arranged."

Somehow, I found myself drifting closer to little Hennah, wondering if I could hear her with greater concentration or proximity. Charlie Swan had required greater focus, but I was able to decipher _most_ of his thoughts.

"Hennah, this is an old friend, Mr. Cullen. Say _hello_."

The little girl looked up at me, her face contorted in distress. "Bella? What's wrong with her?" I whispered.

Suddenly, Hennah lost her breakfast all over my dress loafers.

"Mama!"

Alice took a picture.

* * *

**A/N: ****I ****just ****wanted ****to ****say ****thank ****you ****to ****everyone ****who ****has ****donated ****to ****the ****Fandom ****For ****Texas ****Wildfire ****Relief ****Fund ****. **** More ****than **** $7500 ****has ****been ****donated ****from ****the ****fandom ****to ****help ****those ****who ****suffered ****in ****the ****summer ****fires****. ****I ****love ****this ****fandom****. ****I ****really ****do ****. **


	47. Edward and Rosalie in Rochester

**Edward ****and ****Rosalie ****in ****Rochester**

_Pre-Twilight AU_

_for KristinHazzard_

**My thanks to Kristin for helping me attain a milestone I couldn't seem to move beyond! In gratitude, I asked her to name her subject for a drabble. This is what she chose.**

* * *

_**1932 **__**Rochester**__**, **__**New**__**York**_

"Dr. Cullen, Mrs. Cullen. This is my wife, Lillian Hale, and my daughter, Rosalie."

Carlisle nodded, shaking hands as they came in out of the winter night. "Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Miss Hale. A pleasure." _Oh__, __she__'__s __lovely_, Edward's sire thought. _Just __beautiful_.

No covetous overtones tainted Carlisle's appreciation, but the idea of Carlisle thinking _anything __of __the __sort_ was enough to focus Edward's mind. He was lurking outside, pretending to smoke a cigarette but in reality just accustoming himself to the press of people at the New Year's Eve party being held by the Hales. Dr. Cullen and his family, as newly prominent members of the community, were invited as a matter of good form.

Crushing the glowing tip of the cigarette under his feet on the icy ground, Edward reluctantly turned to take slow steps up to the broad porch and then inside the house. The odors of perfumed humanity hit him like a train in the olfactory senses, but he did his best to ignore that as he sought out Carlisle and Esme.

And the stunning blonde with whom they were speaking. Rosalie Hale?

He had heard of her, of course, but in his temporary guise as "away at college" he had not seen her in person. And there she was. All the superlatives he knew vanished as he wove deftly through the stuffy room to reach his sire's side. Lovely? Too common. Inviting? She was far above him. Incomparable? That might do it.

"Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Hale," Esme said as he approached. _About __time__! _her thoughts admonished. "This is my brother, Edward Masen. I imagine the snow delayed his journey from Harvard."

Rosalie's first thoughts were self-reflective. _He __is __handsome__ - __his __sister __is __too __pretty__, __but __he __and __I __would look __fine __dancing __together__. __Every __other __woman __here __would __be __jealous__. __I __hope __he __asks __me__. __I __really __do__. _ She smiled and said, "Mr. Masen? So glad you could join us for the party." Extending her gloved hand, she held herself proudly, her thoughts echoing her awareness of her own worth.

"May I have the next dance, Miss Hale?" he asked, hearing Carlisle's startled pleasure and Esme's amused curiosity.

"That would be delightful," Miss Hale replied.

_They __are __a __dashing __couple__, _Mrs. Hale thought complacently.

_A __doctor__, __like __his __brother__-__in__-__law__. __She __could __do __worse__. __Dedicated __fellow__. __Rumor __has __it __that __Dr__. __and __Mrs__. __Cullen __are __well __off__. __I __wonder __who __manages __their __investments__? __After __the __fracas__..._

_Yes__, __Sally__. __You __just __watch__. __Oh__, __Vera__, __you __aren__'__t __the __only __one__. _ Rosalie Hale slipped smoothly into Edward's socially-correct embrace for the waltz. She really was beautiful, but he was mostly amused by her focus on it. It was a refreshing change, for him, not to be lusted after. He had never spent time with anyone more self-absorbed that Rosalie Hale. Still, she was a graceful dancer and he supposed the best gift anyone could give her during this festive season would be to be so admired.

He played his role thoroughly, bowing over her hand in the European manner before leading her from the floor after their waltz.

[~ ~]

The year 1933 was turbulent for Edward. At times, the desire for human blood was overwhelming. His throat burned with his craving for it. Always, he mastered his thirst. Always. But the toll was severe on his spirit.

"Why can't I learn to ignore it, Carlisle?" He pounded a tree trunk to smithereens one evening in early spring. "I don't want to kill anymore." His whisper was ragged, dragged from his throat with anguish.

His sire placed one hand on Edward's back, waiting until the younger vampire was finished with whatever he felt he had to say. Then, he lightly rubbed small, comforting circles for a few seconds. "Edward. I have fought, too. For you, it's so hard because you allowed yourself to quench the thirst for a time, and your determination not to do so now only leaves me in admiration."

"I have to go."

_Not __again__, __my __son__? __No__, __please__, __you __won__'__t __be __happy__._

"Not to hunt them, Carlisle. Just to find – fewer people. Someplace more empty."

_If __you __must__, __then __go__, __my __son__. __But __return __to __us __soon__._

"I will."

[~ ~]

He ran wildly through Canadian wilderness, drinking from anything large enough to fight with him. He wanted the battle to soothe his restless spirit. Finally, lonely and actually missing the company of human thoughts, he turned back to Rochester.

He timed his arrival to be in the middle of the night, knowing that then he wouldn't have to worry about the vagaries of New York weather. Approaching the two story house, he heard a riot of thoughts.

_Are __they __always __like __this__? __Oh__, __Carlisle __must __have __been __so __hard __put __with __me__!_

_Where __is __Edward__? _his sire was chanting silently.

And the unending cry of the changing vampire: _It __burns__! __Oh__, __God__, __make __it __stop__! __God__, __make __it __stop__!_

He knew that final mental voice. It was Rosalie Hale.

What the hell had happened? Carlisle had never planned on turning anyone else! No!

Edward burst into the house, unhinging a door in the process.

_Edward__. __Oh__, __Edward__. __I__'__m __so __glad __you__'__re __here__. __We __could __really __use __the __help__._ Esme's mental call was soft and compassionate.

Carlisle's was furtive and unsure. _Mate__. __No__, __hide __that__. __No__. __But __they __seemed __to __hit __it __off __so __well__. _

Furious for some reason he had no idea regarding, Edward pushed past Carlisle and Esme to kneel at Rosalie's bedside. "Rosalie? Miss Hale?"

_Oh__, __God__! __Edward __Masen__? __Is __he __in __Hell __with __me__? _

"You're not in Hell, Miss Hale. You're with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen. And me. You remember me."

Curiosity filtered through the burning thoughts. _He__'__s __been __gone __so __long__... _ Memories of waiting for a note on Valentine's Day, a brief glimpse of the front of the Cullen house, and then she remembered deciding not to waste any more time on That Masen Boy. Another face came to her mind.

_No__! __No__, __Royce__. __Just __come __see __me __when __you__'__re __sober__! _

And then a blur of scenery as she turned and ran away, water in her eyes. She ran into the road and something hit her head so that she knew nothing more until she felt such incredible pain...!

"Carlisle? What happened?" Edward had no control over his hands. They smoothed Rosalie Hale's hair from her forehead, cupped her throat, drifted lightly down her arms to hold her hands.

_Cool__... __Nice__... __Finally__..._

Carlisle's thoughts reached him clearly, clinically. _Her __coat __was __torn __and __her __hair __pulled __half __out __of __its __usual __style__, __Edward__. __Her __collar __had __been __torn__, __too__. __I __am __afraid __she __was __almost __the __victim __of __a __physical __assault__._

"Damnation," Edward growled, examining Miss Hale again. No, the venom was healing her, already he could see the slight difference in her skin. "Then what?"

_She __was __hit __by __a __Genesee __truck__. __They __were __celebrating __something __and __had __their __horses __driving __the __old __wagons__. __The __horses __spooked __and __kicked __and__ – __well__, __I __smelled __her __blood __from __around __the __corner __and __of __course __I __went __to __see __what __I __could do__._

"Why did you decide to change her?" Edward rasped.

_You __haven__'__t __stopped __touching __her __since __you __saw __her__,_ Esme remarked, her thoughts smug and hopeful.

Edward froze and turned, finally, to meet the eyes of his sire and his sire's mate. His jaw fell open. "You think she's my _mate_?"

Esme wrapped her arms around Carlisle. "Stranger things have happened..."

Hope flared within himself, accompanied quickly by concern. He had not found Rosalie Hale to be entirely compatible but – maybe, as a vampire, she would see herself with better perspective.

The days of her change passed slowly, each hour bringing Edward the rueful reassurance that no, if Rosalie had believed herself beautiful before – and she had been – now, she was beyond compare.

"She'll be impossible to live with," he muttered.

[~ ~]

"Edward?" Rosalie had said upon first seeing him. "You're here?"

"I have been," he said, hesitant to take her hand, but yearning to do so. Just to know for certain.

"I heard you. You – you played the piano..." He nodded. She tossed her head and was immediately disoriented. "Oh!" Then, "What happened?"

Carlisle and Esme entered the small room at that moment and, her thoughts crying out in fear, Rosalie reached for Edward, thinking only that he was safe and known.

When her hands grasped his, Edward felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest himself. Fizzling like hot soda water, the physical confirmation of the mate bond began comforting and settling inside of himself like – like it had for Carlisle and Esme.

"Rosalie..."

One hunt, two hours of discussion, three fights and four broken walls later, Rosalie understood.

The number of times they had to fix the bed that week? Five.

* * *

**A/N: I am contributing a Mating Imperative AU story to the Fandom Gives Back compilation to support Alex's Lemonade Stand. Please check out the link on my profile! Fighting childhood cancer is a worthy cause!**

**Thanks for reading!**


	48. EMT Meets Pepper Spray

**EMT ****meets ****Pepper ****Spray**

a drabble for **twideb**, with my thanks!

_She asked for Playboy Edward and a Tough Bella. How'd I do?_

* * *

It was in the way she walked across the parking lot, I think, that got my attention. I was heading in – the bar was my third stop on a Friday night and the evening was still young – when I saw her. Bright circles of light tried to capture her confident strides, failing miserably as she blew through them. Wearing a straight skirt and heels, she looked like she might be a librarian, except that no librarian I'd ever seen exuded femininity like she did. Her top draped her body, skimming her curves, making my mouth dry as I stood, helpless, watching her.

"Edward!"

Dragging my eyes from the girl and her tossed-head-look, I turned to Emmett. "Yeah?"

"C'mon, guy! Remember those girls from Don Carlos? Rose and Ali?" He whistled and made a suggestive motion with one hand. "They're here, my man, and they are _hot_ tonight." I remembered them. Rose was gorgeous, looked like she could model anything, and had a mouth on her – well, I wasn't going to tell Emmett _how_ talented that mouth was, but yeah. And Ali – a natural dancer who could sure maneuver in small spaces.

Yeah. "Coming."

And then, I heard a voice swear on the far end of the parking lot and I knew without looking that it was Sexy Library Lady. The girl had a colorful vocabulary and, without thinking, I was tearing across the fog-damp pavement to reach her. I couldn't see her, but her string of curses was almost visible.

"Hey! You all right?" I asked, finding her clutching her ankle. That long skirt was hitched up almost to her hip and you bet I noticed.

She glared at me, whipping out a can of what I knew was pepper spray and aiming it in my direction. "You just back the hell off, Lancelot. I'm good. Really."

Arthurian reference? I was in lust in my next heartbeat. "Does that make you Guinevere or Elaine?" I asked. "Let me take a look. I'm actually –"

"A doctor?" she said, a laugh seeming to push its way out her throat. "Puh-leeze."

"An EMT, actually," I told her. Truthfully. "Let me get my friend to –"

"Uh, no. I'm good. You just take your male-fragrance-of-fashion wearing self back into the bar to get it on with whatever skanks your friend was telling you about and –"

Not approaching too close, I still held out my hand to her. "Oh, I like you. I will, I promise, just as soon as I know you can get home."

She eyed me, grimaced, and tried to get up on her own before, with a hiss of pain, she accepted my hand. "I can get home."

"Good. Because I really don't want to get called out tonight to have to pick you off the pavement again." I was still holding her hand and something about how it felt in mine made me want to keep it there. So I dropped it. "What's your name, just so I know?"

Still holding the pepper spray in her free hand, she pulled a set of keys from a black purse. "Swan. Bella Swan. Yours? So I can tell 9-1-1 to keep you the hell away from me, later?"

I grinned and pulled her car door open for her after she unlocked it. "Cullen. Edward Cullen. Don't forget."

"Oh, I won't."

I watched her drive away, memorizing her license plate number before she disappeared. Then, returning to where Emmett had been standing before he went back – presumably – to Rose and Ali, I had to smile.

I could still feel her hand in mine.

I glanced into the dark doorway of the club and pulled out my phone.

_Emm__. __Calling __it __a __night__. __Have __fun__. __Edward__. _

On a whim, I jogged back to where her old, beat-up Chevy had been parked and found gold. Her can of pepper spray. Now, when I found her, I'd have a reason to give her hell.

I liked that. I liked that a lot.


	49. Garrett and the AlmostInvitation

**Garrett ****and ****the ****Almost****-****Invitation**

**for**

**Bow ****to ****Your ****Sensei****/****PrincessPeach**

_From __my _**_Open __Up __Next __to __You __AU_**_, __a __look __at __a __moment __during __the __three __weeks __Bella __spent __with __Garrett __when __she __went __nomad__. You don't have to have read that story to get this, but it might help put it in context._

* * *

Her presence in the human's coffee shop surprised him, but not nearly as much as the way she calmly sat, pulled a laptop computer from her rucksack and went through the internet connection rituals so common among the humans. When she glanced his way, he felt a jolt of surprise through his body. Golden eyes. He had only met one vampire who had eyes that color. Yes, Carlisle Cullen had enlarged his coven during the prior century, but he had not scented his old friend anywhere his country's capital.

Of course, he had to meet her.

Introductions went smoothly enough, and he was more than attracted to her. The lively blend of independence, intelligence and vulnerability stirred him more than he would have anticipated.

During their second week together, she had said she needed to do her laundry.

He laughed. "Bella. Just get new clothes! You have the money, I know. And you know, it wouldn't kill either of us to have a hot shower one night."

She offered him a playful, inquisitive smile. "Trying to get me in a room with a bed?"

Was she flirting? He decided she was and sidled up next to her, keeping her gaze with his own. They weren't mates and she was looking for hers, but they were vampires and indulging their impulses was part of their nature. "Is that an invitation?" he murmured, watching her pupils dilate.

He maneuvered them around a corner in the city of Philadelphia, inhaling her fragrance and detecting the sweet scent of her interest in him. Her hands lightly traveled up his chest to his shoulders, and he decided that was invitation enough for him to pull her more closely against himself. It wasn't as if he could or would overpower her. They had built up a trust between them and he respected that – appreciated that – more than he felt the need to couple.

She studied his face, her gaze nearly tangible. "I don't know," she said at last.

Since she still held him, he knew she wasn't rejecting him just yet. Slowly, he lowered his head and trailed his mouth from her temple to her lips.

As a kiss, it was not disappointing. But as a prelude to a hotel room?

With a considering tilt of her head, Bella smiled faintly. "I guess not..." Still, she grinned and moved up to kiss him again – hard and fast and chaste. "But you've given me something to think about." With a quick motion, she was out of his arms and back on the sidewalk of the city, adjusting her rucksack.

He met her grin with one of his own as he stepped out and draped a casual arm around her shoulders. It was a mild disappointment, but they were friends. And friends were harder to find than sexual partners. "Let's head north."

He understood better as she sighed before starting to walk. "Yes. North."

It sounded suspiciously like "home."


	50. Use Protection

**Use ****Protection****!**

**a ****drabble ****for ****JandCo**

This is a **tongue****-****in****-****cheek****-****AU** of my _Open __Up __Next __to __You_ AU. It is what **JandCo** wished would have happened if she had been writing that story.

I _think_.

But then, the story would have been shorter. A lot.

If you have not read OUNtY, chapters one and two, this will make no sense, but you can read it anyway if you want. Just don't say I didn't warn ya... ~ LJ

* * *

"...Remember, I love you," Edward whispered brokenly in Bella's ear, his breath caressing her even as he fought his inner pain.

"I love you, too. You can do this," she reminded him gently, love pouring from her eyes. "I know it."

He nodded shortly, his focus on biting – her blood, her body, her scent. Drawing it all in to his awareness of her so that he'd have it always. After a final, endless moment of gazing into the brave, warm, _brown_ eyes he loved so well, Edward Cullen committed the single most selfish act in his entire existence. He turned his wife into a vampire.

* * *

Bella didn't understand. She had been prepared for pain, for the burn, for the unspeakable torture of the change from human to immortal. But somehow, her body didn't feel anything. Instead, the pain was all in her heart.

She and Edward were in England! The scenery was green, in Bella's changing mind, but she knew it was where they were. And they met a man – a man with black hair and red eyes. He had created a new vampire. They shook hands all around, and something horrible happened.

"Come, Bella. We, er, have to leave. Immediately." With barely a polite farewell, her husband half-dragged her from the old house they had been in and the next thing she knew, they were in a bedroom. A bedroom with Edward's old bedding and a window looking toward a mountain. Where were they?

"Bella, I do love you, in a way," Edward told her, embracing her as they stared out the window together.

"In a way?" Bella shrieked, breaking the glass into the morning light. It was as if the dawn itself was breaking before her, shattering into minute, sparkling pieces. "In a way? What the hell do you mean, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen?"

"I mean, that - that girl we met? Bronwyn?"

"Yeah?"

He moved away, tugging at his hair. "Love matches, my Bella, are more common among our kind than mated pairs."

"Yeah..." Bella felt the trepidation creep down her spine. "And...?"

"And...we're not mates, you and I, Bella. Jasper confirmed that for me right after your change."

"WHAT? Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"I - I couldn't! And, Bronwyn? Well..."

Bella's second shriek shattered the windows in the floor below. "She's your _mate_?"

"Oh, Bella! I didn't mean for it to happen! I just touched her, shook her hand, and, and she _was_! And I can't do anything about it!"

Stricken, terrified, Bella collapsed to the floor. Edward joined her. "I'll leave. I'll go. We can get an annulment... You... I always knew it never made sense for you to love me." Her laugh was almost a sob. "I'm not good enough to be your mate."

"Bella! No! You're too good for me!"

Bella's heart shattered, and she only knew how to pick up the pieces. For three days, her heart broke again and again while her body became immortal.

* * *

When her eyes fluttered open and she saw where she was, Bella leapt from the bed, fury in her every feature.

Edward, caution and adoration warring for dominance in his bright gold eyes, called, "Jasper?"

"I don't know, Edward," Jasper muttered from his protective position in front of the females of the family. "She didn't have any emotions at all during her change, but she's murderous right now."

Bella felt it was time to speak. As her husband had sought his opinion first, so did she. "Jasper?"

She felt the pulse of his projected surprise. "Yes, Bella?"

"Can you tell if there is a mate bond between Edward and myself? Like there is with the rest of the family?"

"Bella, surely you must be thirsty," Edward said after an awkward moment of silence. "Let's take care of you first –"

"No!" Bella snarled in return. "This _first_. Jasper?" She hadn't moved a limb, her body frozen in synchronicity with Edward's.

Edward's collapsing expression was all the answer she needed. She flashed to him, taking for granted that she would have moved as quickly as a thought. "You listen and you listen good, Mr. Cullen. You will never, _ever_ touch _any_ vampire that you have not met before unless you wear gloves. No handshaking. _Nothing_." She gripped his hands with all her strength, apologizing when he winced. "Promise?"

"Bella? What's wrong?"

"Promise?" she demanded, shaking him a little and not even caring. This was too important.

"Anything, my Bella. Anything. You are my life."

"I plan on staying that way, too," she muttered, finally letting him go and taking a deep, fire-laced breath. "All right. Good. I'm thirsty."

"We'll hunt, of course, my love, but please, tell me what that was all about?"

After the hunt, the family skipped the usual post-hunt mating ritual to listen in horror to Bella's nightmare. How Edward found his true mate. How Bella had gone with Jasper and Alice to try to heal from the devastating heartbreak... Bella didn't share _everything_, though. It was enough for Edward to know that her pain had been fathomless.

* * *

He always had a pair of gloves with him from that day forward. "Use protection!" became his motto when meeting any new vampire, and he and Bella lived and loved in profound harmony, forever.

* * *

**And this, Friends and Neighbors, is the final Twilight Moment. Thank you so much for reading these snippets of imagination, for encouraging me to expand one or two, and for indulging me in my flights of fancy. ~ LJ**


End file.
